Chronic illness. I will never not want to read about it - it hits too close to home for me not to care, not to be interested, not to feel painfully seen by women whose immune systems are messing with them as much as mine is with me. "A Matter of Appearance" is an "I see you" to all women past and present who struggled with their health, who had to fight for their invisible suffering to be seen and believed and understood and treated. It’s both tender and angry, and so well researched that I kept being… well, enamored. From the hysteria patients from ancient Greece to the 1900s to today's chronically fatigued Wells finds our common denominators and the social grievances that make us all sick in the first place. And that, my friends, is a topic we should all care about. Because nobody is healthy forever. To quote Susan Sontag: "Everyone who is born holds dual citizenship, in the kingdom of the well and in the kingdom of the sick." So getting acquainted with that second kingdom isn’t a bad idea - and "A Matter of Appearance" is a good place to start.