Rise Above does a great service to the idea of a chronic-illness story with heart, but what makes it particularly distinctive is how deeply it dives into medical trauma. There is something painfully raw about the visceral descriptions of Aife’s experiences in medical settings. The book understands that diagnosis and treatment are very sensory processes in themselves: cold, jarring and sometimes nightmarish experiences that can stay with you long after the appointment, procedure, or surgery is over.
More importantly, it captures the loneliness of that experience. Empathy has its limits; nobody can stand in your place and experience what your body is experiencing, and there are limits to the time, energy and financial resources even the people who love you expend on you. When diagnosis itself remains ambiguous, there is another layer of collateral damage: strained relationships, a shrinking social circle and the darkness of repeatedly questioning your own body.
Aife is a very likeable protagonist, and one easy to understand, in her choices, decisions, and distances. At its core, Rise Above is a hockey romance, and even the characters are easy to warm up to, with enough humour, particularly in Aife and TJ’s internal monologues, to puncture some of the heavier moments. My main reservation is craft-related: some repetition is strategic, particularly within its idiots-to-lovers framework, but some phrases are moving endlessly in a vortex, and eventually the informational loops begin to feel excessive. Certainly a universe of characters whose stories we’d be looking out for!
Read via: ARC provided by the author