An award-winning memoir, Amy Silverstein's SICK GIRL (Grove Press; Paperback; October 2008; $14.00) has garnered tremendous attention, inspired rave reviews, generated impressive sales, and ignited controversy since its 2007 release, putting Amy at the center of an ongoing debate on patient rights, the omnipotent power of doctors, and the nuances of living with chronic illness. Beginning with the onset of her symptoms when she was twenty-four years old, SICK GIRL chronicles Amy's "crazy kind of amazing" medical miracle, a journey of over two decades, from the first misdiagnosis to her astonishing ongoing life after heart transplant, in spite of a ten-year post-surgery life expectancy. Written with force and honesty, Amy's gripping and provocative book presents a patient's perspective that allows the reader to live the extraordinary story alongside her—an unforgettable experience that is utterly compelling. In a new Afterword included in this paperback edition, she discusses the debate sparked by the publication of SICK GIRL in hardcover, addresses her critics, and shares her thoughts after "removing the mask from the miracle" and being alive 22 years post transplant. A surprisingly irreverent and occasionally fierce narrator, her bold, unforgettable self-portrait will forever change your perspective on life, health, and medicine. Amy Silverstein was your typical type-A law student: smart, driven, and highly competitive. Adroitly juggling a budding romance and a heavy academic schedule, Amy did not have time for illness—even one that caused violent and erratic heartbeats, shortness of breath, blackouts, and temporary blindness. When her family doctor suggested that her symptoms were due to stress and diet, she was more than happy to drop a few classes, think calm thoughts, and eat fistfuls of salt. At such a young age, vibrant and energetic, how could she have guessed that her heart was about to fail? With grace and wit, in her debut book SICK GIRL, Silverstein chronicles her astounding medical journey, experiencing an unheard-of and ever-tenuous longevity without additional transplants—she has healthily surpassed her doctors' life expectancy predictions by more than ten years. Distrustful of her doctors and insistent in her refusal to be the "grateful heart patient" she is expected to be, Silverstein presents a point of view that is truly eye-opening and sometimes shocking. "What happened to me demonstrates that there are illnesses that can outsmart and out-perform even the best doctor gods," writes Silverstein in her riveting, keenly observed, wryly humorous look at a full-throttle life-threatening disease. Told she is a "sick girl" by her physician, Silverstein makes every effort to live as a "normal" person, despite immunosuppressive medicines that are actually poisons that keep her body from attacking her new heart and the unrelenting danger of transplant-related death. Her remarkable account is made all the more dramatic by the deliriously romantic bedside courtship with her devoted boyfriend, Scott (now her husband), and a single, uncompromising desire. Although two cardiologists render definitive nos on the issue of pregnancy, no one ever told her she could not be a mother. For Silverstein, her miracle and the heart of her recovery is a baby boy. Among the topics Silverstein explores in SICK GIRL are: The pressure felt by the chronically ill always to smile and harbor unwavering optimism; the costs and benefits of wearing a mask of wellness in front of family and friends when her medical reality is quite different; Heart transplantation as more than just a simple miracle—an eye-opening, firsthand account of the nuances and complexities of heart transplant life through the eyes of a 22-year recipient. The duality of living sick, scared, and exhilarated since the age of 24—the conflict between deep appreciation for her astounding good fortune in being alive, and acknowledging how tough it is to live in a heart-transplant body; The complex dance of patient-doctor communication—evasive white-coat white lies and frank discussions, alike; The terrible price paid for dumbing herself down, the miscalculation of risk, how smart, savvy patients create themselves, and how to be a self-advocating patient who is a 50% partner with the doctor; How patients think—about physicians as "friends" or not, a tremendously intimate relationship with limits; The promise and power of motherhood and how significantly it changed her life; Medicine as a best guess, not an exacting science; Organ transplant winners and losers and the mind-bending delicate balance between being sick enough to receive what you need in order to live and living long enough to receive what you've been waiting for; the emotional aspect of the fair and regulated distribution of organs. A riveting memoir, SICK GIRL is fundamentally about relationships—between patient and doctors, wife and husband, mother and son, sick friend and well friends—and how all these strengthen or shatter under the pressure of a freakish illness. Buoyant and ultimately triumphant, Silverstein's is a compelling and courageous new voice that will stay with you long after you have turned the final page of SICK GIRL. Read reviews here. BUY THE BOOK Amazon Barnes & Noble Books-A-Million Borders IndieBound Grove/Atlantic hardcover (October 2007); ISBN: 0802118542; ISBN-13: 978-0802118547 Grove Press paperback (October 2008); ISBN: 0802143873; ISBN-13: 978-0802143877