Jennifer Traig’s Well Enough Alone is not the kind of book I would have picked up on first sight. I am, quite frankly, kinda bored with memoirs. But as a lifelong hypochondriac, its lovely cover—a portrait in the form of a pill mosaic, if you will—piqued my interest. I turned to the back sections first, and was delighted to find a clever appendix consisting of: Diseases That Would Make Nice Names If They Meant Something Else*, Fables for Hypochondriacs, Ten Horrible Diseases and the Chances You Already Have One of Them, Hypochondriac Haiku, and more!
The appendix alone sold me on the book, and the meat of the memoir is just as inventive and funny as the add-ons. It’s a lightning-quick read, too. And did I mention hilarious? The humor was a nice surprise—I’d expected the majority of the book to be drier, “a cultural history,” as the cover promises. There are some interesting factual tidbits—a short history of eczema, for example—intertwined with the personal narrative. But it’s all a hoot. Yes, even the parts about eczema. Highly recommended, especially for fellow hypochondriacs. (You can read an excerpt here.)
*While Traig does list some good ones (Roseola! Porphyria!), I feel that she misses one of the most obvious answers. Anyone who has ever been unemployed and forced to sit at home all afternoon watching courtroom TV has surely seen the lawyers’ commercials for Mesothelioma. It sounds so pretty sliding off the tongue, and yet, it’s a horrible disease that will kill you dead.
