Let's Talk Books!

Okay, one book in particular: Into the Blue

May 08, 2026

If you didn’t know, this is a book Substack now.

Just kidding, it’s not, but I do desperately need to tell you about a book I read a couple of weeks ago. I am literally still thinking about the characters and wishing I was the kind of person who re-read books. It’s called Into the Blue, by Emma Brodie, and it was… incredible. It was everything I didn’t know I needed, and so much more than I was expecting… although honestly, I suppose I don’t know what I expected, other than that it was billed as a romance with a character who worked at Saturday Night Live (SNL), aaaand it was endorsed by one of my fav bookstagrammers, Katie of Beach Reads & Bubbly. (Hearing Katie’s review was actually what pushed me to scoop up a copy soon after its pub day.)

As soon as I finished it, I wanted to start it all over.

I have been evangelizing this book to anyone who will listen, and now that means you. I even (embarrassingly) sent a DM to the author, gushing about how much I loved it, and I never, ever do that. But I had to! Into the Blue is now firmly on my favorite books ever list, and after writing my own book (not that it is on the same level as this one, to be clear), I even more realize how hard it is to write something that is amazing at the line-level, special and precious to the author, and resonates with another person who is not, say, your mom. The trifecta!

And, as it turns out, I have a LOT to say about it. (Seriously, this post is practically a novel itself.)

***Warning: there is a spoiler coming… stop reading now if that’s something you care about.***

((To be clear, I hate spoilers…BUT this one is at least ‘spoiler lite,’ if that helps. Like the 100 calorie pack Oreos of spoilers — not giving away anything super specific and I’m going to be light on details/context so as to not ruin the book for you and ensure you still grab your own copy.))

Anyways, one of the elements that really sealed the deal for me on this novel <<spoiler time>> was that there ends up being a significant chronic illness storyline that impacts some of the characters. I won’t share more details but that was a part of the plot that I really hadn’t anticipated or heard anyone mention before I picked up the book, and ended up deeply connecting with me for obvious reasons.

Into the Blue is excellent for a multitude of reasons, and while I swear this is not becoming a chronic illness newsletter either (despite my last post), that thread of the plot made it a particularly powerful and resonant read for me. I have never sought out a novel that included a character with a chronic illness, but I also haven’t really happened upon any in my reading journey either. I’ve been an enthusiastic fiction reader since even before I knew the glory of the Scholastic Book Fair, and yet could probably count on one hand any books I’ve read that featured someone with a chronic illness or health issue in general that wasn’t cancer. Even side characters. Isn’t that strange? I’ve actually never thought about that til now. One of the only novels that comes to mind — a very fun romance called Any Trope But You — is one I read as recently as last year and that was indeed a side character, and the other was the Jojo Moyes book/eventual movie Me Before You… and I’m not sure that one technically fits as the character in question was in a wheelchair from an accident, if memory serves (which is not quite the same thing). So, this felt like a bit of a serendipitous find.

All that to say, this storyline was both a surprise and a refreshing discovery, and I felt seen in a story in a way that I rarely do. What I delighted the most in was that the character with the chronic illness was portrayed not in a way that would make you, the reader, or anyone in their life necessarily pity them or feel bad for them. They weren’t written in a way that made you think, even before the reveal, that YEP, that person clearly is “sick” or has an “abnormal” sort of life. (And now I feel like Joey Tribiani.)

The author painted such a rich, full picture of this character and their life, their personality and their overall arc, that never was there even the implied message that that character was somehow not living an interesting life, nor not living a full life, or that, by the end of the book, their condition was holding them back from happiness. Now that is rarely something you see in popular culture these days.

Disability, chronic illness, etc. are instead more often portrayed as something of a caricature and communicated in more negative ways, like it’s a dead end. A death sentence. Something to be pitied or that overshadows any other aspect of the person’s existence. Yes, chronic illness can be extremely difficult and very omnipresent, and everyone’s journey and situation are vastly different as are the various types of chronic illnesses out there — I don’t want to gloss over any of that. But, not everyone who has one is unhappy, nor are they destined to lead a joyless or unrewarding life. And no one with a chronic illness should be reduced to nothing but that diagnosis on their medical chart. How one-dimensional and close-minded, don’t you think?

I can and will only speak for myself and my experience with having a chronic illness (which, to be clear, is not the same chronic illness that is addressed in Into the Blue), and obviously that colors how I resonated with this particular book and how it handled the subject matter. The stereotypes of what it means to have a chronic illness as seen in society, though, have certainly fed into the subconscious decision I made when I was younger to avoid talking about that part of my life and the lengths I have gone to obscure it from my outward identity (despite it being a really frickin’ significant portion of my life). I think it’s also at least partly the reason I never sought out stories about people in a similar boat, never wanted to read up on others with my blood disorder or consume media or art about people with ongoing health issues, etc.

More often than not, the chronic illness component of my life still gets ignored in the public-facing aspects of my life, and that’s largely by choice because of a relentless need (and, frankly, talent) to push it down or shrink it to be more palatable for the world-at-large. I used to think that was a skill actually — how good I was at hiding this elephant that was always in the room with me. (And privilege — I have never looked like what the general public would imagine as unhealthy.) So good that people were/are usually shocked to hear I’ve got any sort of health issue, and so good that I’ve driven myself practically insane at times trying to rearrange schedules and appointments and my entire life in an effort to forever inconvenience myself first before having to tell anyone that I might need a break/some help/the teeniest of changes because of said chronic illness and the laundry list of things it entails to maintain a sense of normalcy and good health. [And again, I’m speaking solely of my own experience with my specific condition.]

Maybe I have done myself a disservice by not actively hunting down any stories that do exist depicting people with chronic illness, I don’t know, but also those types of storylines and characters were not and have not necessarily been commonplace or accessible within the framework of popular culture (unless I am just really living under a rock). And it makes me think about that {very good, very wise} argument that representation matters in art and, really, in your day-to-day, because it’s hard to become something you cannot see. And I don’t know… maybe having had more of an opportunity to read about others living a normal life that just so happened to also include a chronic illness might have made me feel less alone when I was growing up, and when it came to understanding that part of myself. Maybe it would have been nice to absorb that type of messaging sooner than the year I turn 40. Would it have mattered?

I think so.

The older I get, it’s undoubtedly harder to compartmentalize that part of my life from everything else, and it’s started to bleed over into other areas in ways I used to have a better control over before I became a parent. Namely, my feelings about it and reactions. I’m trying to tell myself that that’s not a bad thing, for that part of myself to be more visible. For people in my life to have a better sense of the whole picture of what my normal life looks like, feels like — the good, the bad and the monsters under my bed. But it’s a sometimes impossibly hard thing. And I think that’s a part of the chronic illness discourse that Into the Blue captured really well.

Extremely long story short (LOL — after I wrote a dissertation on this novel), you should read Into the Blue. It was beautifully written, and beyond the chronic illness aspect, the characters were so interesting. And what an ending! Improv, sketch comedy and acting feature heavily in the story, and while those are not usually areas that necessarily call my name (although I do always love a book that has a New York City setting, and this one has a lot about working at SNL), I thought it was really compelling. The plot has such great depth and emotional punch while also being funny, and a wonderful takeaway.

So, yeah — add it to your TBR pile and then let me know what you think after you’re finished. xo

So Many Somethings

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