Excerpts
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"Why Some Illnesses Remain Mysterious."
The Paris Review
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“Why Do Doctors Discredit Women’s Pain?”
Literary Hub
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“They Told Her It Was In Her Head. It Wasn’t.”
Refinery 29
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"I Was Young, Female, and Catastrophically Sick. Doctors Told Me I Was Crazy."
Washingtonian Magazine
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"The Lady’s Handbook for Her Mysterious Illness’ Gives Voice to Women Suffering Chronic Pain."
Ms. Magazine
Interviews
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An evening with Leslie Jamison, Jamie Quatro, and Sarah Ramey, discussing “The Lady’s Handbook for Her Mysterious Illness.”
Presented by Parnassus Books.
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Mysterious illnesses are on the rise with women, whom doctors are dismissing as ‘Nervous Nellies’.”
Salon
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“With a high dosage of humor and hope, this memoir makes the suffering of women with chronic illnesses visible at last.”
BookPage
Praise
“A visceral, scathing, erudite read that digs deep into how modern medicine continues to fail women and what can be done about it.”
“This is so much more than memoir - it’s a barbaric yawp. It’s a manifesto, it’s researched, it's funny, it’s a page-turner, it’s a thriller. I think over time it will become an established part of the literary memoir and medical literature canons, one of those books that has marathon legs and will be studied for generations to come.”
— Jamie Quatro, author of Fire Sermon
“By making The Lady’s Handbook for Her Mysterious Illness so smart, funny, and engaging, Sarah Ramey has found a way to turn life-saving medicine into a delicious read. I've given this book to so many people and they've all come back with overwhelming gratitude.”
— Ann Patchett, author of Bel Canto
“This is a book for anyone who has ever asked a question that didn’t have an immediate or easy answer, anyone who has worried about themselves or a loved one who isn’t getting better—despite following all the experts’ advice—and anyone interested in their own health, public health, or medicine. In other words, it’s a book with something resonant and useful for all of us. It’s also, not incidentally, a terrific read.”
— Chelsea Clinton, author of The Book of Gutsy Women: Favorite Stories of Courage and Resilience
“This book is a song. It's funny, passionate, angry, and not apologetic at all. I read it in the depths of quarantine, and was simultaneously consoled and provoked by its evocation of an isolation I hadn't fully understood or imagined. It kept me up at night in the way the best books do.”
— Leslie Jamison, author of The Empathy Exams
“Sarah Ramey is a person of uncommon wit, bravery, compassion, honesty, and intellect. Every one of those qualities is on full display in this unflinching, important, and stunningly written memoir, which gives voice to millions of women whose experiences and pain have been ignored and minimized.”
— Ed Yong, author of I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life
“Illuminating . . . Though this medical saga is disturbing in the many miscalculations her doctors made, Ramey’s hilarious and upbeat sense of humor lightens even the direst of circumstances . . . Her uncanny grit and fortitude will deeply inspire the multitudes facing similar issues.”
— Publisher’s Weekly, Starred Review
“How do you take topics as heavy as chronic illness, debilitating pain and medical misogyny and package them in a way that makes people want to keep reading? I don’t rightly know, but Sarah Ramey clearly does. This book about women with mysterious illnesses not being taken seriously by medical professionals had me laughing out loud from the very first line.”
— BookPage’s Most Anticipated List
“With brilliant storytelling, Sarah Ramey tells of her experience with a mysterious illness while weaving in a practical roadmap for the woman who is overwhelmed, confused, depressed, desperate, and suffering with confusing symptoms. A masterwork and a page-turning, fantastic read.”
— Alisa Vitti, author of Woman Code
“Dark, potent, and delightfully clever, Sarah Ramey spirit-guides readers through the greatest depiction of the heroine’s journey we’ve seen in years. No matter what you’ve chosen to read in the past, I genuinely believe you will find something to love in this book. I have never read anything like Ramey’s story. It’s clever, yet educational. Scientific, yet spiritual. Funny, and yet so, so tragic.”
— Hannah Oxley, Review
“Astonishing, thorough and revelatory - a valuable resource for WOMIs [women with mysterious illnesses] and those who seek to understand and treat them. This book is a rallying cry to all other women whose illnesses go untreated but also to the general public on the need to make our medical system more responsive to chronic illness. Ramey’s memoir will lift you up by taking you down into the depths of despair that she experienced; you will be as inspired as you are educated about topics such as autoimmune disease, the endocrine system and the ways that society and gender affect them.”