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In Pillness and in Health #3
Are You There, Judy Blume? It's Me, Henriette
What if you got to thank Judy Blume for teaching you about orgasms?
At 10, Henriette asks her mother Why are there so many books about love? Henriette adores books, especially Judy Blume and her complicated heroines, who are as confused about love as she is.
At 13, she starts high school in the shadow of her father’s alcoholic death, and a terrifying diagnosis—kidney failure. Not much about her life seems certain until she spots Seth across the classroom on the third day of school. She is in love.
Henriette and Seth’s romance is upended by intense teen emotions, competing hearts, and the ticking clock of her kidney transplant. But it doesn’t stop them from falling madly in love. They explore all her firsts—first kiss, first orgasm, first fight. Their love feels like forever… Through it all, Henriette returns to the characters who guided her as a child—Katherine’s sexual assertiveness, Deenie’s acceptance, and Margaret’s quest for God.
And confesses everything to Judy Blume along the way…
But what happens to forever when Seth moves 10,000 miles away and Henriette barely exists on dialysis? When her kidney transplant brings complications no one imagined. Can love scale the wall between The Healthy and The Sick? And if it can’t, why won’t it let go?
In the final book of the Pillness trilogy, Ivanans excavates first love for its rawest meaning. Is love the most perilous addiction of all? Maybe first love never dies. Maybe it’s not supposed to because that’s what brought you to life.
Maybe it takes writing your own book about love to even begin to understand love at all.
At 10, Henriette asks her mother Why are there so many books about love? Henriette adores books, especially Judy Blume and her complicated heroines, who are as confused about love as she is.
At 13, she starts high school in the shadow of her father’s alcoholic death, and a terrifying diagnosis—kidney failure. Not much about her life seems certain until she spots Seth across the classroom on the third day of school. She is in love.
Henriette and Seth’s romance is upended by intense teen emotions, competing hearts, and the ticking clock of her kidney transplant. But it doesn’t stop them from falling madly in love. They explore all her firsts—first kiss, first orgasm, first fight. Their love feels like forever… Through it all, Henriette returns to the characters who guided her as a child—Katherine’s sexual assertiveness, Deenie’s acceptance, and Margaret’s quest for God.
And confesses everything to Judy Blume along the way…
But what happens to forever when Seth moves 10,000 miles away and Henriette barely exists on dialysis? When her kidney transplant brings complications no one imagined. Can love scale the wall between The Healthy and The Sick? And if it can’t, why won’t it let go?
In the final book of the Pillness trilogy, Ivanans excavates first love for its rawest meaning. Is love the most perilous addiction of all? Maybe first love never dies. Maybe it’s not supposed to because that’s what brought you to life.
Maybe it takes writing your own book about love to even begin to understand love at all.
336 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 6, 2025
7 people are currently reading
665 people want to read
About the author
Henriette Ivanans
4 books64 followersHenriette Ivanans is the author of The Pillness Trilogy: "In Pillness and in Health,", Big G and Me," and "Are You There, Judy Blume? It's Me: Henriette." "Pillness" is available in Spain as "Hasta Que Las Pastillas Nos Separen (O No)."
Ivanans is a two-time kidney-transplanted, sober woman and occasional actor. She lives in Winnipeg with her living donor and mensch, Kevin, and their dog Jack. She will interrupt you mid-sentence if she sees a dog.
She is currently working on her next book, "Dog-Shaped Hole: How Five Hounds Healed Hen."
Ivanans is a two-time kidney-transplanted, sober woman and occasional actor. She lives in Winnipeg with her living donor and mensch, Kevin, and their dog Jack. She will interrupt you mid-sentence if she sees a dog.
She is currently working on her next book, "Dog-Shaped Hole: How Five Hounds Healed Hen."
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
October 5, 2025
This is a memoir written by a middle-aged woman about her teen years in the 1980s. The author did a good job eliciting that era. I was also a teen during that time, and I appreciated some of the pop culture references, from the music and movies to the hair styles - and who could forget those bulky shoulder pads! The frequent Judy Blume references were mostly lost on me as I can’t recall those books at all (though I read them at the time). But the fact that the book was set in Toronto, (which I am familiar with), made up for that.
The bulk of the book focused on the author’s obsessive love with a similarly afflicted teenager as they clumsily fumbled through their on-again, off-again relationship over many years. It had all the typical high school drama with jealousy, the catty mean girls, leaving notes in lockers and embarrassingly awkward moments with crushes. These are all things that I had long-ago forgotten about from my own teen years, though I know that it all seemed so important while I was living through it.
An interesting element to this memoir was that the author had kidney failure. So we take the journey with her as she battles hospitalizations and medication side effects. There was a particularly touching moment with her wonderful mother, who has a major role in this sub-story. There were a couple of other major health issues that were referred to but not fully flushed out. These include the author’s transient battle with anorexia and later addiction. Despite such heavy topics, the book was a quick read. I actually got through it in one day (on a really long flight!) though I admittedly skimmed at times, mostly in some of the bits on the love interest, as it sometimes felt repetitive.
If you want to relive the awkwardness of teenage love – particularly in the 80s – then this book is for you.
This is my honest review, and I am posting it voluntarily. Thanks to the author & publisher for the give-away opportunity that enabled me to win this book.
The bulk of the book focused on the author’s obsessive love with a similarly afflicted teenager as they clumsily fumbled through their on-again, off-again relationship over many years. It had all the typical high school drama with jealousy, the catty mean girls, leaving notes in lockers and embarrassingly awkward moments with crushes. These are all things that I had long-ago forgotten about from my own teen years, though I know that it all seemed so important while I was living through it.
An interesting element to this memoir was that the author had kidney failure. So we take the journey with her as she battles hospitalizations and medication side effects. There was a particularly touching moment with her wonderful mother, who has a major role in this sub-story. There were a couple of other major health issues that were referred to but not fully flushed out. These include the author’s transient battle with anorexia and later addiction. Despite such heavy topics, the book was a quick read. I actually got through it in one day (on a really long flight!) though I admittedly skimmed at times, mostly in some of the bits on the love interest, as it sometimes felt repetitive.
If you want to relive the awkwardness of teenage love – particularly in the 80s – then this book is for you.
This is my honest review, and I am posting it voluntarily. Thanks to the author & publisher for the give-away opportunity that enabled me to win this book.
February 2, 2026
Henriette Ivanans asks the question:
Is love the most perilous addiction of all?
This is a big, bold question, considering everything we learned about Henriette in the first two books of the trilogy - In Pillness and In Health, and Big G & Me.
We learned of her addictions to alcohol and drugs, no small mountains to climb in a life filled with kidney disease, two kidney transplants, and her father dying of alcoholism when she was a young girl.
Are You There, Judy Blume? It's me, Henriette, is a roller coaster of emotions, partly due to the fact that a lot of it is coming from the experiences of a teenage girl. If that wasn't enough, this girl begins to get sick, and eventually finds out she has kidney failure.
The emotional highs and lows of a teenage girl experiencing love for the first time are all laid out on the table for us to observe, and experience through Young Henriette. The juxtaposition of a life-threatening disease existing parallel to the excitement, titillation, and confusion of a young girl's first experience with love can be at times heartbreaking, but there are also moments of such hope, and happiness, that you cannot tear yourself away from what may come next for Henriette and Seth. In the end, I think the answer to her question is: Love can definitely be a perilous addiction, and for some, possibly the most perilous addiction of all.
Read the first two books, then read this book. This is a trilogy that takes you on a backwards journey through a life that could very well have put the author on a completely separate path than she is currently on, completely opposite . . . but the path she moves forward on provides the reader with a sense of hope for the future.
Thank you, Henriette. Your beautiful storytelling abilities, your words, and your actions ARE making a difference in this world.
Is love the most perilous addiction of all?
This is a big, bold question, considering everything we learned about Henriette in the first two books of the trilogy - In Pillness and In Health, and Big G & Me.
We learned of her addictions to alcohol and drugs, no small mountains to climb in a life filled with kidney disease, two kidney transplants, and her father dying of alcoholism when she was a young girl.
Are You There, Judy Blume? It's me, Henriette, is a roller coaster of emotions, partly due to the fact that a lot of it is coming from the experiences of a teenage girl. If that wasn't enough, this girl begins to get sick, and eventually finds out she has kidney failure.
The emotional highs and lows of a teenage girl experiencing love for the first time are all laid out on the table for us to observe, and experience through Young Henriette. The juxtaposition of a life-threatening disease existing parallel to the excitement, titillation, and confusion of a young girl's first experience with love can be at times heartbreaking, but there are also moments of such hope, and happiness, that you cannot tear yourself away from what may come next for Henriette and Seth. In the end, I think the answer to her question is: Love can definitely be a perilous addiction, and for some, possibly the most perilous addiction of all.
Read the first two books, then read this book. This is a trilogy that takes you on a backwards journey through a life that could very well have put the author on a completely separate path than she is currently on, completely opposite . . . but the path she moves forward on provides the reader with a sense of hope for the future.
Thank you, Henriette. Your beautiful storytelling abilities, your words, and your actions ARE making a difference in this world.
September 17, 2025
Thinking about my experience of the book, what comes across most in the writing is presence — the moment — the sense we are living in between the space of each heartbeat, whether it beats with ecstasy or hopelessness. It is in these extreme moments of awareness where the book forces us to confront just how little we have sometimes lived ourselves, how safe we’ve played it, and we ache to have been as alive as Henriette Ivanans was in high school when she fell in love while trying not to die.
I can see the urgency in how it was written. It’s like how people place tracing paper over a headstone and brush a charcoal stick across it to reveal the lettering underneath — what’s written in stone appears instantly, almost like magic. The past returns, fully formed. This wasn’t a story to be written, it feels like something that lived inside the author since it was first carved there, she just had to run the charcoal across it to memorialize it for the rest of us to see.
It’s 1am and I’m sitting in the dark in my little downtown studio apartment. The train whisks by outside a few hundred feet from me. I think of this book, how loving and moving and funny it is, and I ask myself, “How is such a beautiful work possible coming from the same woman who drank and used pills the day after her husband gave her his kidney?”
By all rights, the author should be dead. Instead, she continues to remind all of us — here is how to live.
I can see the urgency in how it was written. It’s like how people place tracing paper over a headstone and brush a charcoal stick across it to reveal the lettering underneath — what’s written in stone appears instantly, almost like magic. The past returns, fully formed. This wasn’t a story to be written, it feels like something that lived inside the author since it was first carved there, she just had to run the charcoal across it to memorialize it for the rest of us to see.
It’s 1am and I’m sitting in the dark in my little downtown studio apartment. The train whisks by outside a few hundred feet from me. I think of this book, how loving and moving and funny it is, and I ask myself, “How is such a beautiful work possible coming from the same woman who drank and used pills the day after her husband gave her his kidney?”
By all rights, the author should be dead. Instead, she continues to remind all of us — here is how to live.
October 6, 2025
Are You There, Judy Blume? It’s Me, Henriette.
I didn’t want the story to end—and in truth, it hasn’t. Henriette is living proof that her life is worth sharing, and her words continue to echo long after the final page.
Her writing transported me into every scene, each moment illustrated with vivid, compelling language. I wanted to reach out to her when she was scared, hurting, lonely, or lost. I could feel my arms wrap around her, hoping my imagined embrace might offer some healing. But I also felt anger—especially when she spoke of alcohol and pills. I understood her longing for normalcy as she transitioned from girlhood to womanhood, even if “normal” was elusive. I thank G d I never faced the addiction she describes in In Pillness and in Health, but I recognize its truth and its grip.
I love this woman from afar—Henriette—and her husband Kevin too. Their journey has been marked by hardship, but love has been their anchor, keeping them tethered through the storm.
Henriette reminds us of something vital: we have no idea what others are carrying. Joy, sorrow, triumph, despair—it’s all hidden behind the masks we wear. We rarely ask the questions that could save a life, whether our own or that of a stranger passing by.
So the next time you walk down the street, don’t assume you know someone’s story.
Buy this book. Read it. Share it. Let it open your heart.
I didn’t want the story to end—and in truth, it hasn’t. Henriette is living proof that her life is worth sharing, and her words continue to echo long after the final page.
Her writing transported me into every scene, each moment illustrated with vivid, compelling language. I wanted to reach out to her when she was scared, hurting, lonely, or lost. I could feel my arms wrap around her, hoping my imagined embrace might offer some healing. But I also felt anger—especially when she spoke of alcohol and pills. I understood her longing for normalcy as she transitioned from girlhood to womanhood, even if “normal” was elusive. I thank G d I never faced the addiction she describes in In Pillness and in Health, but I recognize its truth and its grip.
I love this woman from afar—Henriette—and her husband Kevin too. Their journey has been marked by hardship, but love has been their anchor, keeping them tethered through the storm.
Henriette reminds us of something vital: we have no idea what others are carrying. Joy, sorrow, triumph, despair—it’s all hidden behind the masks we wear. We rarely ask the questions that could save a life, whether our own or that of a stranger passing by.
So the next time you walk down the street, don’t assume you know someone’s story.
Buy this book. Read it. Share it. Let it open your heart.
October 6, 2025
Took the day off and finished this coming of age memoir...couldn't put it down! It is entertaining, yet very thought provoking and makes one look back on their own teen experiences. Having also spent those formative years in Toronto, the nostalia was overwhelming in spite of my having been 20 years ahead of our author...the subway rides, the walks in the park, the four seasons, the kindness and friendship afforded me by my boyfriend's mother and the shocking by today's standards, fact that kids could still go out alone at all hours of the day and night without fear.
In my case, having lived through a kidney transplant as caregiver to my then 11 year old grandson, there was so much to compare with the standards of care between the U.S. and Canada. Perhaps the time frame and progressinon of medical science was what caused the enormous difference. It was asounding how completely different our experience was...I'm not sure if that comes under progress over the ensuing 34 years, or "you get what you pay for"!?
Regardless, this book is worthy of any and all recognition it can muster.
In my case, having lived through a kidney transplant as caregiver to my then 11 year old grandson, there was so much to compare with the standards of care between the U.S. and Canada. Perhaps the time frame and progressinon of medical science was what caused the enormous difference. It was asounding how completely different our experience was...I'm not sure if that comes under progress over the ensuing 34 years, or "you get what you pay for"!?
Regardless, this book is worthy of any and all recognition it can muster.
January 10, 2026
Henriette's writing is always just so captivating. Her writing makes my soul ache in a good way. The clear and specific details make long-sleeping memories of my own wake up, and as an author, she really holds your hand and walks through the shadow of the valley of death with you. I always feel reborn after reading her work, and AYTJBIMH is no different. The challenges she faces in young love while also facing immense attachment issues because of her father's death and survival fears because of her own body's function makes me tear up. I just relate so much, even though I didn't have kidney failure nor a parent die that young. The writing truly X-rays her own soul and X-rays yours in the process, and it gave me permission to forgive myself for some behavior when I was young and in infatuation - to see it's actually a gift of life to be able to live that and survive it and be able to move into healthier love in the future. I'm so grateful and can't state enough how immense Ivanans' mastery of the craft is, that she can give a gift so akin to therapy and self-reflection that I've looked for my entire life. This book is a gift, read it!!
November 13, 2025
This book is a brilliant example of how powerful memoir is when done right. “Are You There, Judy Blume? It’s Me, Henriette” feels like John Green met Judy Blume in the non-fiction aisle and blew each other’s minds. Teenage heartbreak is devastating enough, but throw in a dead father and failing kidneys, and it’s almost more than the heart can take.
Thankfully, Ivanan’s wicked humor and youthful voice allow us some breathing room amongst the tragedy of a teenage girl facing her own mortality. She dances between heartbreak, death and the mania of new love without missing a beat. At times, I wanted to crawl under the covers with this book and a flashlight. It took me back to my teenage angst days in the best ways, while keeping us grounded in the starkness of facing her own mortality.
I've been a fan of Ivanan’s work since "Pillness" and remain in awe of her talent and gut-wrenching honesty. The tone of each book in the trilogy is distinct for the time in her life, yet the strength of her voice never wavers. She writes with a fierceness that only a survivor can – and does.
I highly recommend this book and the entire trilogy.
Thankfully, Ivanan’s wicked humor and youthful voice allow us some breathing room amongst the tragedy of a teenage girl facing her own mortality. She dances between heartbreak, death and the mania of new love without missing a beat. At times, I wanted to crawl under the covers with this book and a flashlight. It took me back to my teenage angst days in the best ways, while keeping us grounded in the starkness of facing her own mortality.
I've been a fan of Ivanan’s work since "Pillness" and remain in awe of her talent and gut-wrenching honesty. The tone of each book in the trilogy is distinct for the time in her life, yet the strength of her voice never wavers. She writes with a fierceness that only a survivor can – and does.
I highly recommend this book and the entire trilogy.
January 29, 2026
Thank you, Henriette, for Another top notch read by Henriette Ivanans. She has an uncanny ability to bring you right to where she is. The emotion, the feelings, the smells, the textures. I felt what she felt as a young girl navigating the transition into a young woman, and doing so while navigating a life changing health condition - her kidney failure. While I have never read Judy Blume (where was I?) I loved the way she wove the "Are You There" asides so seamlessy into the narrative. While we already knew the spoiler alert ending (we know she's married to Kevin and not to Seth), you just want to root for these young people, but you know, in your heartacheingly heart of hearts that there story will end, somehow.
Thank you for sharing what I call your origin story. Your three stories together share a portrait of an amazing and complex person, and who has put a human face on addiction, self discovery and love.
Thank you for sharing what I call your origin story. Your three stories together share a portrait of an amazing and complex person, and who has put a human face on addiction, self discovery and love.
September 17, 2025
A compelling and sizzling journey through first love
Whether you have read a Judy Blume novel or not, you will gobble up this memoir—the third in an amazing series by author Henriette Ivanans.
It is a heartfelt journey that kept me turning the pages to see what happened next. As Henriette and Seth navigate young first love, she lives with kidney failure, and her future is unknown.
This beautiful story brought back memories of my young love, being a teenager, school, questions and fears. I remember being a young woman and reading Judy Blume’s books. Henriette honours Blume by sharing her angst, love, secrets and joy throughout the memoir in diary form—a gift to the radical voice who transformed so many childhoods.
This book will make you laugh, howl, cry and blush! It is not to be missed and is a stunning prequel to the first two books in Pillness series.
Whether you have read a Judy Blume novel or not, you will gobble up this memoir—the third in an amazing series by author Henriette Ivanans.
It is a heartfelt journey that kept me turning the pages to see what happened next. As Henriette and Seth navigate young first love, she lives with kidney failure, and her future is unknown.
This beautiful story brought back memories of my young love, being a teenager, school, questions and fears. I remember being a young woman and reading Judy Blume’s books. Henriette honours Blume by sharing her angst, love, secrets and joy throughout the memoir in diary form—a gift to the radical voice who transformed so many childhoods.
This book will make you laugh, howl, cry and blush! It is not to be missed and is a stunning prequel to the first two books in Pillness series.
October 17, 2025
This review is written with one finger. I am utterly useless at writing on a cell phone but reading this wonderful book on first love, I certainly feel it is worth to let the author and public know how this gem of memories was so heart warming that it should be shared by many, many others. I had set a task for myself of reading one chapter at a time. That way I could enjoy the memories in a quiet time frame. BUT somehow that did not work out for me. After the first chapter I simply had to read the next chapter. And that was that. Took me two days to absolutely devour it. It was so exciting to feel this young person dealing with life and love. What a life. This book is so worth reading for many reasons. Love, life and one’s own remembrance of teenage years. Superb book. Congratulations many times to the author
November 8, 2025
Just finished the 3rd book by Henriette Ivanas, “Are You There Judy Blume, It is Me Henriette”
This memoir is Henriette’s origin story. She takes us through the journey of kidney failure and transplant when she was way too young. While at the same time we explore the foibles of her heart and mind as she navigated her first love… The bitter and the sweet of these intertwined stories make for a compelling read!
Henriette has a way of taking me on the journey of my own young life as I bear witness to hers. As I lay on a proverbial innertube floating down the powerfully narrated and uninhibited currents of her life, I find myself reflecting on my own, seeing trees in my own forest I had not seen before.
Henriette is a powerful storyteller! I have read all three of her books and can't wait for book number four! (Hint, hint!)
This memoir is Henriette’s origin story. She takes us through the journey of kidney failure and transplant when she was way too young. While at the same time we explore the foibles of her heart and mind as she navigated her first love… The bitter and the sweet of these intertwined stories make for a compelling read!
Henriette has a way of taking me on the journey of my own young life as I bear witness to hers. As I lay on a proverbial innertube floating down the powerfully narrated and uninhibited currents of her life, I find myself reflecting on my own, seeing trees in my own forest I had not seen before.
Henriette is a powerful storyteller! I have read all three of her books and can't wait for book number four! (Hint, hint!)
December 11, 2025
A Return to Honest, Emotionally Fearless Storytelling
I was a late reader, and Judy Blume’s Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret was the book that finally opened the world of reading to me. So discovering Henriette Ivanans’s Pillness Trilogy—In Pillness and in Health, Big G and Me, and now Are You There, Judy Blume? It’s Me, Henriette: In Pillness and in Health 3—felt like returning to the kind of honest, emotionally fearless storytelling that first drew me in. Ivanans was also profoundly shaped by Blume, and here she offers a witty homage written with disarming honesty. Her memoir blends coming-of-age reflections with the raw realities of illness and recovery, creating a brave, heartfelt story that honours Blume’s spirit while standing firmly on its own. I highly recommend this book and the entire In Pillness and in Health trilogy.
I was a late reader, and Judy Blume’s Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret was the book that finally opened the world of reading to me. So discovering Henriette Ivanans’s Pillness Trilogy—In Pillness and in Health, Big G and Me, and now Are You There, Judy Blume? It’s Me, Henriette: In Pillness and in Health 3—felt like returning to the kind of honest, emotionally fearless storytelling that first drew me in. Ivanans was also profoundly shaped by Blume, and here she offers a witty homage written with disarming honesty. Her memoir blends coming-of-age reflections with the raw realities of illness and recovery, creating a brave, heartfelt story that honours Blume’s spirit while standing firmly on its own. I highly recommend this book and the entire In Pillness and in Health trilogy.
December 27, 2025
This coming-of-age tale of first love is a spot on rendition of teen life in all it’s angsty glory. It pulled me right back to those days when big feelings made you feel so certain about life in one moment and completely uncertain in the next. Ivanans's writing is gorgeous and poetic as always, while simultaneously remaining deeply rooted in the reality of the tween and teen experience. It made me want to go back and read all of Judy Blume‘s books again. The fact that this is a story of the author’s own life made it resonate on such a deep level. Whether you’re a fan of YA or just a fan of page-turning novels you can’t put down you need to read this book.
September 24, 2025
This book is just another outstanding publication written by such a talented author. You see, you hear, you literaterally feel what she describes. She has such a gift to draw you in right from page 1. Every woman, especially every young woman, needs to read this book. I wish I could have read it in my early teens. I can't wait for her next one! I've re-read her first 2 & will start re-reading this one tomorrow after having just finished reading it a few days ago. Please don't miss the opportunity for a wonderful & unique read!
October 14, 2025
Henrietta is a gorgeous writer. I’ve read all three of her books and each time I’m always blown away by the writing not because it keeps you at arms length with its gorgeousness, but that it pulls you in and gives you the opportunity to feel exactly how she felt. And there are a lot of feelings in a teenage girl’s life! But what an extraordinary journey and so beautifully told
Also, impressively - I could not put it down! I’ve never met a memoir that I couldn’t put down! I totally wholeheartedly recommend this book!!
Also, impressively - I could not put it down! I’ve never met a memoir that I couldn’t put down! I totally wholeheartedly recommend this book!!
January 12, 2026
I read this book in one day. I loved it so much, I was sad when it ended. I think I liked it so much because I could relate to it. We are the same age, and of course I was a huge Judy Blume fan. I could also understand her first love. I went through something similar, out at least it felt that way. No we didn’t last but I did marry his best friend. This is a must read I think for every girl and woman. Men should read it but not sure they would understand it. I want to read everything by this writer now.
November 21, 2025
This book is my favorite in Henriette Ivanans's trilogy! Her intuitive ability to make me feel 14 again with her prose is amazing. She manages to perfectly capture the feel of Judy Blume's novels while remaining authentic to herself and her story. Her writing took me on a teenage journey that made me laugh, cry, scream, and love. If you are looking for an open, honest, and no holds bar book about the beauty and angst of first love this book is for you.
September 16, 2025
If you've been lucky enough to know a wild and unpredictable first love, you'll see it perfectly reflected in "Are You There Judy? It's Me, Henriette." Henriette Ivanans has written a sexy, pulse-racing and profoundly honest teenage love story, worthy of Blume herself.
October 12, 2025
A wonderful book on first love and also the complications that she had to go through with her kidneys failing . A very talented author . Henriette has the ability to make you feel like you’re there . I’ve read all 3 of her books so far and can’t wait for her next one.
October 15, 2025
An amazing brave woman and an amazing author. All 3 of her books are wonderful. I couldn’t put down Henriette’s latest Are You There Judy Bloom it’s me Henriette. Transported me back to my teenage years.
October 3, 2025
⚡⚡⚡⚡⚡
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 2, 2026
Brilliant, complicated, and human in every way. A tour de force of a trilogy.
October 16, 2025
“I couldn’t stop turning the pages through this profound journey of first love complicated by a kidney transplant in the 1980’s. By turns light and heartbreaking. I was riveted.”
September 16, 2025
If “Normal People” was a memoir.
“Are You There…?” is a captivating and relatable exploration of first love during Henriette’s kidney failure as a teen. Witty and heart-wrenching, it movingly explores the obsessiveness and fear of intimacy that often breaks first love. Ivanans is a master at bringing us into her world and her heart.
“Are You There…?” is a captivating and relatable exploration of first love during Henriette’s kidney failure as a teen. Witty and heart-wrenching, it movingly explores the obsessiveness and fear of intimacy that often breaks first love. Ivanans is a master at bringing us into her world and her heart.
Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews