A Body Made of Glass oscillates between lengthy paragraphs of scholarship and periods of self-scrutiny, including therapy.

A Body Made of Glass is a product of impressively thorough research, but it is sometimes circuitous and digressive to the point of frenzy. It blends memoir and literary criticism with micro-histories of subjects of varying relevance.

Blending memoir and cultural history, it is lucid, broad in scope, full of nuanced reflection.

Fascinating and intelligent... suffused with the intensity of feeling that hypochondria ignites.

Since her cancer treatment, Crampton has found herself irretrievably fragile, or irretrievably aware of her fragility: tantamount to the same thing, she points out.

Though the book is marketed as a hybrid memoir and Crampton’s story serves as an anchor, her experiences make up a fairly small proportion of A Body Made of Glass. The book ranges comprehensively not only through the history of hypochondria, but also through hypochondria’s appearances in books and culture..

Poetic and personal, this book reveals a condition that is debilitating and often hidden..

Riveting, genre-bending.