“ Lycanthropy and Other Chronic Illnesses is a funny, heartfelt book with a phenomenal premise.” — New York Times Teen Wolf meets Emergency Contact in this sharply observed, hilarious, and heartwarming debut young adult novel about friendship, chronic illness, and . . . werewolves. Priya worked hard to pursue her premed dreams at Stanford, but the fallout from undiagnosed Lyme disease sends her back to her childhood home in New Jersey during her sophomore year—and leaves her wondering if she’ll ever be able to return to the way things were. Thankfully she has her online pen pal, Brigid, and the rest of the members of “oof ouch my bones,” a virtual support group that meets on Discord to crack jokes and vent about their own chronic illnesses. When Brigid suddenly goes offline, Priya does something out of character: she steals the family car and drives to Pennsylvania to check on Brigid. Priya isn’t sure what to expect, but it isn’t the horrifying creature that's shut in the basement. With Brigid nowhere to be found, Priya begins to puzzle together an impossible but obvious truth: the creature might be a werewolf—and the werewolf might be Brigid. As Brigid's unique condition worsens, their friendship will be deepened and challenged in unexpected ways, forcing them to reckon with their own ideas of what it means to be normal. One of POPSUGAR's Best YA Books of April Kids’ Indie Next List Pick A SIBA Read This Next Selection for Spring 2021 A 2022-2023 South Carolina Young Adult Book Award Nominee “A funny, heartfelt book with a phenomenal premise . . . it manages to represent a lot of identities and intersectionalities: trans and disabled, chronically ill and racial minority, queer and cryptid. At its core, the novel feels like a love letter to the internet communities that connect people; it’s a reminder that friendships, both virtual and in-person, can save lives.”—Maya Van Waganen, New York Times “Emotional, thoughtful, and a true testament to the power of friendship, Lycanthropy and Other Chronic Illnesses is a werewolf novel that will make you look at navigating illness, supernatural or not, in a whole new way….O’Neal breaks new ground with this book and accomplishes something truly wonderful.”— Locus Magazine “Your next favorite horror-comedy.”—Syfy “O’Neal persuasively pulls from her own experience with chronic illness to inform her depiction of the topic, using interactions between support group members to layer comedic banter and vulnerability that specifically addresses aspects of disability experiences.”— Publishers Weekly “A heartwarming, quirky take on chronic illness in all its hairy detail.”— Kirkus Reviews “A fresh and original twist on the werewolf legend.” —Booklist “A must-read for anyone with a chronic illness or who loves someone with a chronic illness.” — School Library Journal “Clever, original, entertaining, and all the more impressive when considering that Lycanthropy and Other Chronic Illnesses is author Kristen O'Neal's debut as a novelist.”— Midwest Book Review “An electric tour de force of hilarity and humanity. Oof, ouch, my heart! It bleeds for this book.”—Preston Norton, author of Where I End and You Begin “Hilarious in addition to having great chronic pain/illness rep.” —The Horn Book Inc Kristen O’Neal is a freelance writer who has written for sites like Buzzfeed Reader, Christianity Today, Birth.Movies.Death, LitHub, and Electric Literature. She lives on the internet. You can find her at kristenoneal on Tumblr. Lycanthropy and Other Chronic Illnesses is her first novel. Ticks don’t actually have teeth. I looked it up afterward, scrolling through photos with that same kind of sick fascination of watching someone pop a pimple. They’ve got this horrible ridged capitulum that opens up into three parts like the monster from Stranger Things , sinks into your skin, and holds on just long enough to derail the course of your entire life.      I don’t know what time it is when I wake up. This time last year, I would have known the second I heard my alarm trilling: 7:30 a.m. on a Monday, enough time to hit snooze once, slip out of bed, turn on the coffee pot my roommate and I weren’t allowed to have in our dorm, and get ready to leave for Bio at 8:40. Enough time to sit and drink it, knees to my chest, as she slept, scrolling through my email or my blog. I was a well-oiled machine. I was pre-med at Stanford and I had made it out of New Jersey. I was ready for anything.      It must have happened when I was home for the summer, trudging through the tall grass with my high school friends, cutting across a field to get to town. Or maybe it was down by the Amtrak tracks with the climbing plants as Jadie roped me into “acting” for one of her film projects. I don’t know. I’ll never know. The only thing I know is that when I got back to California last fall, I got sick. Really sick.      I don’t set an alarm anymore. I know I’ve slept too long—m