Review: ‘Please Read This Leaflet Carefully’

I don’t usually write book reviews, but after reading the brilliant ‘Please Read This Leaflet Carefully’, it was one I had to tell everyone about.

Books As A Reflection of Our Own Lives

Those who love to read do so for a variety of different reasons. Some open the book and devour the words on the pages for escapism. To escape from personal problems, or pain and disappear into a different world. Others enjoy for the sheer enjoyment of exploring new and varied landscapes or experiencing new adventures.

Sometimes, however, we often want to open a book and find it to be a mirror; one that reflects our feelings and experiences; to make us feel a little less alone. A book that as we turn the pages, they make us nod and mumble affirmative acknowledgments of the truths that lay before us.

A Lack of Books About What It Is To Live With Pain and Illness

As someone living with a neurological disorder, experiencing chronic pain, there is a lack of books that accurately reflects this. Disappointedly books that deal with such issues generally share information to understand better the diagnose. Filled with scary and complicated medical terminology and alarming statistics regarding the very worse case scenarios.

Other books, however, are on the other side of the spectrum, full of sugary optimism, which promises a cure with a positive mental attitude. It is very little in the way of a happy medium between the two. And very few novels depicting characters living with a chronic illness or chronic pain in which is both realistic and hopeful.

Thoughts on ‘Read This Leaflet Carefully’

Reading the original and thought-provoking novel ‘Please Read This Leaflet Carefully,‘ therefore, was like a breath of fresh air. It tells the story of Laura Fjellstad, living in New York, in her thirties, and coming to terms with being a newly single mother to her young daughter. As well as this, she is also trying to come to terms with a body wracked by chronic pain. Pain caused by severe endometriosis that has left her internal organs scarred and fused. So severe that Laura needs extensive surgery to try and mediate the effects of the condition. I don’t suffer from endometriosis, like the central character, but the grief and limitations of living with chronic pain, however, felt all too familiar and personal as I devoured each page.

Although Laura, is the main protagonist it feels that pain, however, takes centre stage, becoming the main focus in the life of the main character which as those living with chronic pain will relate as it too can often feel that it happens in our own life.

“She knows that I still have to ration my energy and be careful about everything and still, regardless of what I do, pain still claims a certain percentage of my life.”

A Book That Accurately Describes The Impact and Scope of Chronic Pain

What makes this book, feel fresh and original than anything else out there is the reverse chronology from present day to childhood. This storytelling device makes the novel that more heart-rendering, highlighting the devastating impact and scope that chronic pain has on those who endure it. By also, showing moments in her life where she is “better”, or prior to a diagnosis, it shows that pain and illness are still influencing her life.

As the book jumps back in times, it does so to describe the other significant moments in Laura’s life, through her eyes. Moments including first moving to New York and meeting her husband; her past relationships (with both men and women). And the diagnosis and medical problems that have ramifications for the course of her entire life. It then transports us back to her childhood and her love of figure skating, which provides her with the freedom she deeply craves but is stopped by the limitations of pain and illness.

Expressive and Beautiful Writing That Jumps Off The Page

I love the beautiful and vivid descriptions of different moves, jumps, and spins from figure skating, interspersed throughout the book. These descriptions are so expressive; the graphic images jump off the page as they if performed in front of your eyes.

“I hadn’t done anything with my body in years; it didn’t even feel like it belonged to me. It was something I’d been saddled with; uncooperative, painful, stiff, and embarrassingly weak.”

Those living with such conditions will know that the effects of chronic pain go beyond the person living with it. Pain and illness have an impact on everyone in the family, as well as close friends. The need to be able to be open about the pain and other symptoms, but others being uncomfortable to listen to the intimate problems with our bodies. These heart-rendering portrayal of the invisibility and powerlessness felt all too familiar. It will sadly resonate with many who suffers or has suffered from a chronic condition.

“It’s crystal clear to me that no one wants to hear about it,” she thinks. “But I will never finish needing to tell how much it hurt, how much it hurts, how bad it is.”

A Book That Is Not Just About Suffering; But About Finding Meaning and Experiencing Life Within It

Despite this, however, the book is neither bleak or dark. Yes, it is a powerful and intimate account of what it is truly meant to live with pain. That despite our attempts to break from the limitations of pain and illness, often they are. But, the book is not just about suffering; it is about finding and experiencing life within it. It is about the drive and ambition that we still have, even when our bodies begin to deteriorate before us.

The author Karen Havelin writes with profound clarity, truth and often humour regarding the frustration, and grief of attempting to navigate a world which is often obstinately not built for her. But, which Laura against all the odds finds despite adversity and overwhelming obstacles. It is ultimately a story of hope and finding things that you once believed to be out of reach, only when we are brave enough to try.

Final Thoughts

As I read and devoured each page with ease due to the eloquent words before me, I underlined many passages which rang with such accuracy when regarding my own experiences with pain and illness. It is a story with tremendous insight that made me feel a little less alone, and ultimately isn’t that we all crave?

Finally, a book that I am able to read and resonate with; one that encapsulates what is to live with pain with pure eloquence. A book that we can give to others when they cannot understand what it is we go through every day. ” I can’t imagine what it is to live with such pain” someone will say. In response, we can hand them this gem of a book, and say “Read this, then you may better understand.”

In the UK, Please Read This Leaflet Carefully is published by Dead Ink Books and is available from the leading book retailers.