Wednesday 27-11-2024 - 15:06

When I finished my master’s earlier this year, I said to myself, “I am 100% going to get back into reading!”. So, I did. Well…I tried to. Turns out getting back into the zone of ‘reading for pleasure’ is difficult after you’ve mixed it up with academic reading for the past 4 years.  

I have spent months trying to find books that appealed to me, books that I actually wanted to read, but I really struggled. I read the books my friends had given to me or encouraged me to try, and while I enjoyed them, I felt as though something was missing. I just wasn’t sure what. 

A few days ago, I borrowed a book from Kindle’s very extensive library called Finding Gene Kelly (written by Torie Jean) for no other reason than the cover looked cute, and I know I could do with something fluffy and light-hearted to read right now! To my surprise, the female main character (FMC) had endometriosis. 

 

Quick pause, I know what you’re thinking: “Orna, you bang on about endometriosis at any given moment, and you only shut up about it when you go to sleep. How have you never seen this before?". Well reader, you would be right, but here’s the thing. I have yet to find a book in which the FMC has post-diagnosed endometriosis, not only that, but I have also yet to find a book in which the FMC has endometriosis and it contributes to the whole plot, and it isn’t immediately brushed away soon after. 

Having finished my book at the weekend, I am pleasantly surprised at the number of times endometriosis is mentioned and, more importantly, how accurately it is portrayed. From descriptions of pain to the anxiety around maintaining relationships (platonic and romantic) and even the mention of post-surgery scars.

The reality of the situation that I have been living in for the last year was on paper (or in my case, on a Kindle screen). To me, I found what I was looking for: an accurate representation of a character with endometriosis, with all the symptoms, thoughts, and internal battles that come with it. While this is all under the guise of a sappy rom-com, the internal struggle of the main character, both mentally, physically, and emotionally, is one that I can appreciate. It kind of validates my own experiences as yes, it is embedded in fiction, but…it is also real enough for me to go, “Yeah, relatable,” which is something I look out for in books and various other forms of media. 

 

In Sally Rooney’s ‘Conversations with Friends’ (an amazing book, by the way, I highly recommend it), the FMC, Frances, suffers with debilitating period pain and, over the course of the summer, gets diagnosed with endometriosis. This was my first exposure to endometriosis in literature, and I am a die-hard Sally Rooney fan, so I was so happy to read this, especially as I was still begging for a referral at this point in my life, but I can hand on heart say that Frances getting diagnosed 3/4s of the way through the book, with no prior appointments or referrals, is a stark contrast to the actual reality of living with endo. 

Colleen Hoover’s ‘All Your Perfects’ also has an FMC with endometriosis… but she only gets diagnosed right at the end of the book, and in my opinion, it was written very poorly and not in good taste. Basically, depictions of the endometriosis experience in literature are rare. Accurate and ongoing representation? Even rarer. 

 

There is a lot of discourse at the minute surrounding representation and why it matters. Selfishly, while I know representation matters and why it is so important, it wasn’t until I went searching for it that I truly realised the extent that people will go to look for it. And now I truly understand why. It is our identity; it is us. Of course we want to be able to find it, we want to be able to find ourselves in our favourite characters, whether that’s through looks, personalities, and, in my case, illness and disabilities. And everyone’s experience is different, ergo more variation is needed. Readers need to be able to visualise themselves in their stories. 

 

I know for me, I would love to see more characters with already diagnosed endometriosis and how that affects the journey in their story, bonus points if it is a fantasy romance with dragons and magic! I do often think, if I had exposure to it sooner, would it have prompted me to seek out help sooner? Hindsight is a wonderful thing, and I suppose that’s why it prompted me to write this, as I want to pass on my own pearls of wisdom to anyone else who may be looking for their own ‘thing’. 

So, to any budding young authors out there looking to write their next big thing, keep us in mind, yeah?