Needles: A Memoir Of Growing Up With Diabetes

As the title suggests, the author is graphically frank about the medical necessities of living with juvenile-onset diabetes, and squeamish readers may find her memoir harrowing. In its essence, however, this is a story of emotional growth and healing. Diagnosed at 9 by her older sister Denise, who is herself a diabetic, Andie Dominick spends her adolescence rebelling against her condition: "dieting" by skipping shots, undergoing a dangerous abortion at 17. When, at 21, Andie discovers 33-year-old Denise dead in the house they share, she begins to reexamine the reckless lifestyle that killed her sister and threatens her as well. The discovery three years later that she has diabetic retinopathy, which could lead to blindness, helps Dominick realize she cannot follow her sister's path: "Denise always told me having the disease didn't have to change my life. But now it has ... because I am finally facing who I am." Love and eventually marriage continue Dominick's process of self-knowledge and acceptance, though there is no facile happy ending. (She has a tubal ligation rather than risk passing diabetes to another generation.) Dominick's deliberately plain prose and gritty candor render her struggle accessible and real. --Wendy Smith