In this book, a blend of memoir, autobiography, medical history, and literature, Alice Hattrick tells us about her ailing mother and how, like a mirror, she too gradually became ill, with the same symptoms, without any real causal explanation and without the outward appearance of being sick.

She evokes her fragile childhood, spent between the infirmary and her bed, and theorizes about the sickroom and the feelings associated with illness.
Throughout the narrative, she interweaves her analyses and passages from her life with references to cases of sick women—authors, poets, or artists—who wrote essays, diaries, or letters, such as Virginia Woolf, Alice James, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Emily Dickinson, Louise Bourgeois, and Florence Nightingale.

She also discusses the concept of “crip time,” theorized by Alison Kafer, a period experienced by the sick person, whether in the hospital, at home, or in bed, when they are unable to achieve the productivity society expects.