Poor Little Sick Girls

Ione Gamble never imagined that entering adulthood would mean hospital trips, medication choices, and throwing up in public. Diagnosed with an incurable illness two weeks after her nineteenth birthday, as the world became obsessed with Girlboss feminism, Ione came to grips with spending 20 hours a day in bed. Watching identity politics become social media fodder, from the confines of her sickbed she began to pick apart our obsession with self-care, personal branding, productivity, and #LivingYourBestLife. Using her experience with disability to cast a fresh gaze on the particularly peculiar cultural moment in which young women find themselves, Ione explores the pressures faced, as well as the power of existing as, a chronically ill, overweight, and unacceptable woman in our current era of empowerment. --Cover