Holiday season is coming and one thing I’m quite sure is that I can reach 100 books since I just finished this memoir from Tracy Anne Ong of @blithebooksindependent as my 97th read of 2024.

This is a recent release from @penguinbookssea and written by a Filipino author narrating her journey and recovery from stroke.

I mentioned earlier this year that I will commit to read more non-fiction titles and based on my experience in the last eleven months, I tend to enjoy reading memoirs hence I decided to pick Tethered as one of my last priority reads.

So, what can you expect from this book?

One, there is a lot of medical jargons and majority of the anecdotes happened in hospital settings hence prepare to read about extractions, tests, diagnoses, and results following the author’s experience in 2020.

This book is packed with honesty in a way that the author bared it all in details. From the medical terms that I first encountered through this book to truthful slices of a patient’s life, Tracy Anne Ong spilled her guts and more and it made the book direct and open to readers.

There’s a lot to be said about reading someone’s (painful) experiences and imagining how brave they were in reliving those moments in order to have it written/shared but I think it’s more of a testament of courage and with Tethered, Tracy Anne Ong used that strength in order to share her story and hopefully, to impart additional facts about stroke.

It is also undeniable that the author is privilege enough to get treatment outside of the Philippines and there was even a discourse about how crappy our healthcare system in PH is but I liked how the author acknowledged that privelege and how the author ended the discussion about the Philippines health system.

Lastly, if I were to end this thought train with a one-liner, I’d use the very same words of the author: “this is not a depressing book, but it is an account that begins with immense suffering.”