The Year My Life Went Down the Toilet
by Jake Maia Arlow (Author)
A hilariously honest book about surviving middle school while navigating a chronic illness from the Stonewall Honor-winning author of Almost Flying.
Twelve-year-old Al Schneider is too scared to talk about the two biggest things in her life:
1. Her stomach hurts all the time and she has no idea why.
2. She's almost definitely 100% sure she likes girls.
So she holds it in...until she can't. After nearly having an accident of the lavatorial variety in gym class, Al finds herself getting a colonoscopy and an answer--she has Crohn's disease. But rather than solving all her problems, Al's diagnosis just makes everything worse. It's scary and embarrassing. And worst of all, everyone wants her to talk about it--her overprotective mom, her best friend, and most annoyingly her gastroenterologist, who keeps trying to get her to go to a support group for kids with similar chronic illnesses. But, who wants to talk about what you do in the bathroom?
The Year My Life Went Down the Toilet is a wildly funny and honest story about finding community, telling the truth even when it's hard, and the many indignities of middle school life.
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Publishers Weekly
Ashkenazi Jewish seventh grader Al would much rather be "a brain in a jar connected to a supercomputer" than have to manage the complications that come with a chronic illness or navigate her burgeoning feelings for another girl. This proves especially true as, following a visit to a porta potty during gym because she can't control her aching kishkes ("guts" in Yiddish), an appointment with a gastroenterologist reveals she has Crohn's disease. At her mother and doctor's urging, Al joins a middle school inflammatory bowel disease support group--which the attendees affectionately dub the Bathroom Club--to meet kids like her. She immediately crushes on Mina, who also has Crohn's. But even as Al gets closer to her new friends, she struggles with adapting to her diagnosis and dealing with feelings of loneliness when her best friend Leo joins the drama club and begins spending less time with her. Via Al's plucky, plain-spoken first-person narration, Arlow (How to Excavate a Heart) presents an honest and exceptional story of a tween's experience dealing with rapid and abundant change, while tenderly reflecting upon themes of chronic illness, found family, interdependence, and queerness. Supporting characters are intersectionally diverse. Ages 10-14. (Aug.)
Copyright 2023 Publishers Weekly, LLC Used with permission.Review quotes
JUV039020 - Juvenile Fiction | Social Themes | Adolescence
JUV038000 - Juvenile Fiction | Short Stories
JUV060000 - Juvenile Fiction | LGBT
Schools
Middle schools
Lesbians
Coming out (Sexual orientation)
Crohn's disease
