Breathe And Count Back From Ten by Natalia Sylvester

Release date: May 10, 2022
Setting: Florida, USA
Genre: YA fiction
Means of reading: Digital ARC
Identities represented: Hip dysplasia, Peruvian-American
Review:

Who is Verónica? She’s a Peruvian-American seventeen-year-old girl born with hip dysplasia. When we meet her, she’s figuring out how to be her full self while her overprotective immigrant parents struggle with the reality of her growing up.

There are several plotlines throughout the novel: Verónica wants to become a professional mermaid at a nearby mermaid tourist attraction, she finds out some crucial information about her hip dysplasia progression which threatens her dream, and a new (and obviously cute) boy moves into the apartment complex who she immediately clicks with. Between all of this, she’s got a whole lot of contemplating to do on her place in the world and how people, particularly her family, react to her disability.

It’s not an overreaction to say this book changed my life. The whole reason I started Sick Stories was in the hope of finding books like Breathe And Count Back From Ten. While there are several aspects of Verónica’s identity I don’t share lived experience with, I never in my wildest dreams hoped to read a character who doesn’t like chewing gum because it reminds them of anesthesia. Sometimes I had to put the book down as I was too busy picking my jaw off the floor that someone has been able to write feelings I’d never been able to fully articulate myself.