There’s Nothing Wrong with Her

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“Funny and painfully true. A book of revelations. . . . The best thing you’ll read this year.” —Kiley Reid, author of Such a Fun Age and Come and Get It

A raw, tenderly comic, and perfectly off-kilter novel about a woman with a mysterious illness who occasionally finds herself in “The Pit” — a delirious state of semi-consciousness — and the improbable, sometimes-imagined people who meet her there.

Vita Woods is on the brink. She produces a popular podcast and lives with her successful doctor boyfriend, Max, with whom the sex is great and the future promising. Her brilliant if unreliable sister Gracie is her best friend and sparring partner. And her steadfast goldfish, Whitney Houston, brightens even her dimmest days. Because the days are dark, as much as things are going right. Vita is not leaving the house. In fact, she can barely make it out of bed.

Instead, she spends long, blurred hours falling in and out of “The Pit,” dead to the world and to herself. For months, Vita has been sick with an illness that no doctor, not even Max, can diagnose. And recently, Luigi, a Renaissance poet nursing a 500-year-old heartbreak, has started showing up at her bedside, bringing snacks and unsolicited romantic advice. He says he’s come to release her. The issue is: he may be a ghost, an apparition of her sickly mind.

Then, when, an unexpected mix-up pushes her into the path of her upstairs neighbors, Vita finds friendship — and perhaps more — in the apartment above. But something about her “condition” keeps nagging at her. What if the problem is Vita herself? Because as far as anyone can prove…there’s nothing wrong with her.”Weinberg takes a stylistic turn in this short, sharp read about friendship and recovery, inspired by her experience with long COVID.” —Library Journal

“Funny and painfully true. A book of revelations. This is a beautiful capture of what it means to live with a chronic illness. The best thing you’ll read this year.” —Kiley Reid, author of Come & Get It and Such a Fun Age

“Kate Weinberg writes with prose so exquisite that I kept copying bits to show people. There’s Nothing Wrong With Her is so beautifully perceptive and forensically observed; she writes about the complexities of human relationships in a way that stops me in my tracks. One of those books I will read again and again.” —Jojo Moyes, author of Me Before You

“I couldn’t put down this quick, clever novel. . . . Both comic and heartbreaking in equal measure, There’s Nothing Wrong With Her is a post-pandemic must-read. I’ll be thinking about its vivid cast of characters for a good long time.” —Amy Shearn, award-winning author of Dear Edna Sloane and The Mermaid of Brooklyn

“Deep and dark and beautiful.” —Esther Freud, author of Hideous Kinky

“A really wonderful piece of work: so fresh . . . So excellently written . . . I love the way it encompasses SO many things: a whole life—sorrows, damage, hopes—but then has them interacting so interestingly with the present, like two thick paint colors slowly mixing in front of your eyes.” —Richard Curtis

“It’s moving, absorbing, evocative—such a thoughtful exploration of the traps of grief and chronic illness. Beautifully conjured. Shades, I felt, of The Yellow Wallpaper, but brilliantly modernised.” —Sara Collins, author of The Confessions of Frannie Langton

“I’ve never read anything like it. A brilliant mass of contradictions. . . . It’s light and dark, funny and moving, soulful and sexy, quirky and important. A delight and an education on every page.” —Emma FreudKate Weinberg is the author of The Truants and host of the podcast series “Shelf Help.” She lives in London.US

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