My book reviews for the Girl Behind Dark Glasses Trilogy by Jessica Taylor-Bearman, including A Girl Behind Dark Glasses, A Girl in One Room and A Girl Beyond Closed Doors. Please be aware that reviews for later books contain spoilers.

From a darkened world, bound by four walls, a young woman called Jessica tells the tale of her battle against the M.E Monster. The severest form of a neuro immune disease called Myalgic Encephalomyelitis went to war with her at just 15 years old. From beneath her dark glasses, Jessica glimpses a world far different from the one she remembers as a teenage school girl. This true story follows her path as she ends up living in hospital for years with tubes keeping her alive. This harrowing story follows the highs and lows of the disease and being hospitalised, captured through her voice activated technology diary called `Bug' that enables her to fulfil her dream of one day becoming an author. It provides a raw, real-time honesty to the story that would be impossible to capture in hindsight.

This book was provided for free by the Publisher and the publishers in exchange for an honest review. Many thanks to the publisher and the author for the opportunity to read this book!

Content Warnings:

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A Girl Behind Dark Glasses by Jessica Taylor-Bearman has been on my TBR (to be read) list for quite a while. Like Taylor-Bearman, I have ME/CFS, and there are very few books about the condition, so of course I want to get my hands on as many as I can. Despite knowing about A Girl Behind Dark Glasses before reading it, I wasn’t ready for it.

In 2005, Jessica Taylor was an ordinary teenage girl, thinking about her GCSEs and having her first boyfriend. Then she started to get sick, a feeling of exhaustion that never left after a flu bug. She’s told by her doctor that she has ‘post viral chronic fatigue syndrome’, also known as myalgic encephalomyelitis. We’re told all these details from Jessica’s diary “Bug”, which she started when she was fifteen years old. Gradually, Jessica’s symptoms became worse, with her unable to attend school and having to face the reality that she won’t be able to return when a truancy officer visits to discuss other options. Her health continued to deteriorate until she ended up in the hospital.

This is the start of Jessica’s battle with severe ME, which she refers to as the ME monster, an apt name for the condition that takes control of her entire body. She is unable to move, eat or communicate. It’s a reality for many people with severe ME, and as someone with ME, I thought I was aware of what people with severe ME faced. How very wrong I was. While I knew the medical side of things, the symptoms, I had no idea of the appalling ableism, dangerous situations and horrific medical negligence that people with severe ME have to deal with.

Using the Bug entries that she wrote through coded messages with the help of her family, Jessica compiled her experiences into her memoir A Girl Behind Dark Glasses. The change in Jessica’s voice over the course of her diary entries is particularly moving, showing the effect that the ME monster has had on her. Where diary entries are not available, she adds a commentary, filling in her thoughts from when events happened. The result is a complete account that is a difficult read, but a necessary one.

A Girl Behind Dark Glasses is an excellent read that is filled with hope and love as much as it is struggles. While Jessica has had to go through so much more than anyone should, and most of it not due to her illness, this is a chronicle of her fight and her successes as much as a testament to what she has been through.

Part two of the number 1 bestselling book A Girl Behind Dark Glasses. Jessica returns home after four years in hospital to a world changed beyond recognition. Her friends have grown up and gone to university, her baby sister is now 16. Everyone has moved on, but her battle with the M.E. Monster is far from over. Jessica faces new challenges daily but she wants to experience life as a young adult, and refuses to let her M.E keep her in hospital for years again. Jessica wants to show the world that she is more than what they see... and this time they will see her.

This book was provided for free by the Publisher and the publishers in exchange for an honest review. Many thanks to the publisher and the author for the opportunity to read this book!

Content Warnings:

At the end of A Girl Behind Dark Glasses, Jessica’s goal of leaving the hospital had been reached, although she had been left reeling when doctors had given her the shocking news that she had severe osteoporosis. In A Girl in One Room, Jessica’s uphill battle is still not over. While she is now at home with her family, her severe Myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) prevents her from being able to move or sit up. This book takes us from 2010 to 2017 and takes us through Jessica’s journey to take back control from the ME monster with the help of her care team and the support of her family.

It is a slow, meticulous process with multiple setbacks as Jessica works towards goals such as being able to sit up in bed and sit up in a chair. Gradually moving on to working towards more difficult goals that are not just more important for her long-term health, but also for emotional reasons, such as attending her brother’s wedding. You’ll find yourself cheering along, crying when she has a setback and being thankful for the online ME and chronic illness community that supported Jessica as she works towards each goal.

I remember getting to the year in the book when I developed ME and realising how much Jessica had already been through by that point, how I had no idea about ME or any of Jessica’s social media campaigns. I was disabled before I developed ME and was active in the online community, and yet was completely oblivious about ME. The reason I mention all this is to point out how little is known about ME within our own community. It’s becoming better known now through the efforts of advocates like Jessica and Jennifer Brea, who created and starred in the film Unrest (in which Jessica also took part, and her contribution is included in this book). Even with their work and the awareness that has come from COVID and Long-COVID, ME awareness still has a long way to go.

A Girl in One Room includes the story of Jessica meeting her husband on an online dating site. The awkwardness of her having to send her dad to pick him up from the station in her stead, so he met her dad before even meeting her in person. Jessica’s worries will be relatable to everyone who is disabled, who worries about whether someone will love them for who they are or judge them for illnesses beyond their control. I am a complete sucker for romance, and reading about a real-life love story is always beautiful; this is no exception.

Once again, Jessica provides an important account of what it is like to live with severe ME, never wavering from the difficult moments. Jessica has another book on the way, a third book to finish off her memoir trilogy, and I’m looking forward to reading it.

After 12 years of being trapped in the world of one room by the M.E. Monster, Jessica's dreams start to come true. She's pregnant! But Jessica has to adjust to being a disabled mum in an inaccessible world and face the critics who doubt her abilities.

This book was provided for free by the Publisher and the publishers in exchange for an honest review. Many thanks to the publisher and the author for the opportunity to read this book!

Content Warnings:

A Girl Beyond Closed Doors by Jessica Taylor-Bearman is the third book  Jessica has written detailing her journey from the start of her diagnosis with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (M.E.). In this final book in the trilogy, Jessica takes the reader through more deeply personal and moving moments of her life. As with her other books, Jessica speaks from her heart and has a delightful writing voice that always draws me in. 

We’ve followed Jessica from hospitals, to one bed and then living in one room with her partner, Samuel. At the end of the last book, A Girl in One Room, Jessica had successfully managed to walk down the aisle for her wedding. In A Girl Beyond Closed Doors, Jessica details changes in her life that lead to her and her husband looking to move out of their one room, and into a place of their own. The biggest change is that Jessica is pregnant!

As someone with ME and multiple chronic illnesses, there are a lot of things in life that have felt off-limits since my diagnosis. Which is why reading a first-hand account of someone with ME talking about their pregnancy was emotional but invaluable. Jessica was also diagnosed with hypermobile joints during her pregnancy, something I also have, meaning that her experiences were even more meaningful to me.

What I’ve truly appreciated about all of Jessica’s books is that she doesn’t skimp on details, especially when discussing medical appointments and discussions with medical professionals. I already had my eyes opened to the horrible attitudes medical professionals have towards disabled people becoming pregnant while reading We’ve Got This, a collection of essays by disabled parents. But those were personal essays rather than a first-hand account, and Jessica’s candid account offers a perspective that will be enlightening to many.

This is just the tip of the iceberg that is A Girl Beyond Closed Doors, and Jessica delivers so much more in this third book. It is a brilliant end to the trilogy, and if you’ve yet to pick up Jessica’s book, I highly recommend doing so.

Thanks for reading my book reviews for the Girl Behind Dark Glasses trilogy by Jessica Taylor-Bearman! Don’t forget to check out my interview with Jessica!

Don’t forget to check out the rest of my reviews if you’re looking for some more book recommendations 🙂 You can also now sign up for my newsletter to get an email each month with a list of my new reviews!

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