Mostly Cloudy With Some Bright Spells

by Juliette Wills

Librarian Note: Alternate Cover Edition for B007FZPS9G.

‘I inadvertently introduced Victoria and David Beckham, stupidly turned down a date with a top Premiership footballer, talked to singing sensation Barry White about fish fingers and had a cup of tea with Darth Vader. I made an exhaust for Damon Hill's F1 car, fell in love in Las Vegas and travelled around America with a complete stranger. I married a Frenchman I barely knew and I’ve had my guts yanked out and my heart sewn up. Beat that!’

In 1999, Juliette Wills had a bright future as a journalist and broadcaster. One minute she’d be in Melbourne or Monaco covering the Grand Prix, the next interviewing footballers and pop stars. She’d just moved to the seaside, made friends with a seagull (yes, really) and spent her weekends dancing in rockabilly clubs in London.

Just a year later she was suddenly struck down by two debilitating, incurable illnesses: ankylosing spondylitis and ulcerative colitis. After undergoing traumatic, life-saving surgery and in so much pain she was unable to walk, Juliette lost everything - her career, her relationship and finally, her independence.

Mostly Cloudy With Some Bright Spells is an incredible story of determination, acceptance, love, and above all else, hope. Juliette is
in constant, debilitating pain; undaunted, she has turned her unique experiences and adventures into an inspiring, brutally honest and often hilarious story you won’t want to put down.

Genres: Nonfiction

Kindle Edition

First published March 1, 2012

About the author

Former sports journalist, Guardian columnist, celebrity interviewer, football fanatic.

Now cursed with ankylosing spondylitis, scoliosis and ulcerative colitis. I love donkeys, cats and dogs of all shapes and sizes and Tottenham Hotspur FC - my first love.

I'm the author of 'The Spotter's Guide To The Male Species' (2004) and 'Mostly Cloudy With Some Bright Spells'.

I live in a city in the UK with a cathedral and a lot of swans but no decent restaurants.

Reviews

[Martin Belcher · Rating 5 out of 5]

The main reason for picking up this book is that I suffer from the same chronic medical condition as Juliette Wills, Ankylosing Spondylitis. This book is like going on an adventure through 20 years of Juliette's life, it starts off quite fun and quirky with tales of her early career in journalism in London and meeting some famous celebrities, her romantic life, sometimes disastrous but always interesting and her wonderful parents and friends. What happens next is a very sad but true story of Juliette coping with several life saving operations in hospital and dealing with not one but two chronic conditions, Ulcerative Colitis and Ankylosing Spondylitis. I can tell you from experience it's no fun having AS but to have to cope with AS and UC together takes a special person like Juliette with enormous bravery to carry on in life....

I have to be honest in admitting this book made me cry, it reminded me personally of the years of pain and operations I had to suffer with my AS and how it robbed me of my life during my twenties and early thirties. Having a chronic health condition changes who you are and your outlook on life, anyone who disagrees just does not understand. End of. Juliette has written a no holds barred from the bottom of her heart account of her struggle and this is not an easy read in places, but I don't think it's meant to be, what I did think is that this book should be read by everyone, regardless of wether you have health problems or not, it may make you realise that what you moan about in life is not that bad after all....

I sum up by saying this is a wonderful read, it will make you think, it will make you laugh, it might make you cry and some of it might make you feel angry, but isn't this what life is all about? Juliette is now a hero in my eyes.

[Verna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading this book about a kind of quirky, sometimes over the top personality. Juliette comes across as someone who you would like to be best friends with, very strong and likeable! She laids it all out, no holds barred with her description of suffering from not one but two horrible medical conditions. First, her career as a sports writer and journalist is rudely interrupted by a severe bout of colitis for which she seems to receive little help from those in the medical profession. I guess England is not much better than the United States despite having a system of socialized medicine. Her experiences with doctors, hospitals, drugs, and surgery make you shudder in sympathy and horror. It is amazing she survived to write this book is all I have to say about that. After having life altering surgical interventions and parts of her body re-arranged, Juliette still manages to live a pretty full life, complete with psycho boyfriends and an obsession with "rockability," music. She is then stricken with another illness which renders her barely able to cope, but still is lucky enough to meet the man of her dreams, all of our dreams actually. I wanna move to France. However, if you are like me, you will relate to this woman's story because it is about struggling through days of sometimes unbearable physical pain and immense suffering yet somehow going on with your life in between. Kudos to one hell of a woman. Read read her story. You will be humbled.

[Mandy Jacobs · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh my goodness, such an emotional read. I laughed so hard and moments later found myself sobbing. I repeatedly asked ‘how can one person undergo so much and still keep going?’ I also found myself shouting at the hospital staff for help on her behalf. I enjoyed this book although I am not entirely sure that is the correct adjective given the subject matter, I wouldn’t want to appear masochistic.Good luck Juliette, your situation struck a chord and I so wish that life could become easier, you will remain in my thoughts.

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

You could be forgiven for thinking it a bit odd that my choice of 'holiday reading' for a short trip to Morocco was a book about a young woman suffering a bunch of highly painful and debilitating illnesses, choosing lots of totally unsuitable men and spending a lot of time doubled up in agony. My husband kept asking me WHY I was reading something so miserable and somehow the response "But she's really funny" didn't seem to quite explain why Juliette Wills' book was so compelling.

I have had a remarkably pain-free life and can't even begin to imagine what Wills has lived through with ulcerative colitis, ankylosing spondylitis, scoliosis and eventually even more crappy things. Seeing it written down really helped me to understand how exhausting, depressing and even suicidal she felt. What's remarkable is that through all of this, her sense of humour never seems to fail her. Her parents are absolute stars and (most of) her friends seem to have been rocks of solid support. Her taste in men seems to reflect a shocking lack of self-worth as she picks losers, liars and utter space-cadets.

Her early life as a journalist was really interesting and at times very funny and serves to contrast against just how awful it worked out later. Whilst there are times when reading about not sleeping for weeks on end, all kinds of bodily 'gunk' falling out of her butt and constant pain does get a bit challenging and - dare I say - repetitive. Her apparent bad treatment at the hands of uncaring nurses is shocking but very believable.

My step-father had to have a length of bowel removed during emergency surgery and ended up with an ostomy. Having read of Wills' hatred of her stoma, I'm left with far greater admiration for how my step-father took it in his stride and got on with life with 'Billy' the Ileostomy. I found some of the ostomy stuff absolutely fascinating and gory - the experience of watching mussels and raw oysters squeezing their way out of her 'insides on the outside' was particularly memorable.

I dropped a star for three main reasons/irritations. The fact it's only one I knocked off is testimony to how good the book is. Firstly for poor editing; a journalist shouldn't make such mistakes and at times they were distracting. Secondly, for probably alienating quite a lot of her potential readers with similar conditions who she found on online fora and described (multiple times) as 'illiterate' (though I did recognise her comments about the negativity of such groups). And finally, I found her disparaging (IMO) comments about people who get cancer and how they have an easier time of it, deeply ignorant and unnecessary. This shouldn't be a competition about who has the crappiest life - especially when you're just had a go at online forum members for competing with one another about just how terrible their lives are.

[Claire Reviews · Rating 5 out of 5]

Picked up this book as I too have a chronic invisible illness and I wanted to see how a write would describe her pain, fatigue and all the other symptoms, thinking that I could maybe use some of her words to help my family and friends better understand my condition. I think it worked to a certain extent - my mum is also going to read this book to try and see exactly what I feel and experience on a daily basis.
Anyway, enough about me...I found this well written, engaging and honest, a really great book to recommend to family and friends of any one of the conditions that Juliette suffers from, or indeed potentially any chronic invisible illness.

[Naomi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wills shares her story of learning to live with chronic debilitating excruciatingly painful illness, the sharp contrast between her life before and after the illnesses came into their fullness, and the reality that there is no getting better and learning to cope with that. Angry - and with plenty of reason - this is a fine read for others who have developed one or more chronic debilitating illnesses (there is so often more than one!), for those who love people living with those illnesses, and professional and volunteer caregivers to better understand the pain, bewilderment, and real challenges of each and every day.

[Brenda · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. I originally borrowed it from Amazon Prime to hear about her way of dealing with AS, as I have recently been diagnosed myself. It didn't take long though to get caught up in her romances an wacky ways.

[Amy Rush · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazingly inspirational. An emotional book that will have you laughing one moment and tears in your eyes the next. Would recommend this to anyone who has had to live with personally or see a loved one deal with a chronic illness on daily basis. A fabulous insightful read.

[Rachel Kirton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderful read

Juliette is an actual superhero, I'm sure of it!!!! Her humour throughout everything is a credit to the strong and brave woman she is. I have IBS which is tough but is nothing compared to what she goes though.