A hilarious dark and honest look at the life of a doctor at a hospital and the patients they have to look after and all their little quirks. I found this to be a brutally honest eye opener. It's humorous banter lightens the plot.

If you didn’t know better, you’d be forgiven for thinking that A Little Unwell was a memoir. Riddled with the gallows humour that can only come from having worked in healthcare herself, Jewell writes about Amy, a junior doctor navigating the complexities of a hospital night shift rotation and some semblance of a personal life.

It’s rare that I ACTUALLY laugh out loud when I read but this book had me in fits of giggles from the start, before it had me bawling. The book paints a grim and unfortunately extremely realistic view of the Australian public healthcare system and some of the vast challenges our doctors are faced with every day - gruesome injuries, difficult patients, difficult colleagues, compassion fatigue, actual fatigue.

I enjoyed the tone and pace of the book and found it a very engaging novel, despite its often heavy content. I think this book will resonate deeply with anyone who has worked in frontline healthcare, and be equally valuable to those readers who haven’t. My only qualm was that I found Chris so infuriating, but I understand that this was purposeful!

TW: The novel is quite graphic in parts, uses strong language and addresses suicide. Read at your discretion.

Dark, wickedly funny, tragic and powerful - if you loved “This is Going to Hurt” then you will love A Little Unwell!

I finished A Little Unwell feeling a lot more emotional than I expected to. On the surface, it’s warm and funny and very readable; the kind of book you can easily sink into, but underneath that there’s a quiet depth that really stayed with me.

Amy completely won me over. She felt like someone you might actually know. She’s messy, tired, trying her best, and not always getting it right… and that’s what made her so compelling. There were moments where I genuinely felt for her, especially seeing the pressure she’s under and the constant balancing act of caring for others while barely keeping herself afloat. It made me think about the real people behind hospital doors: the ones working long shifts, carrying huge responsibility, and still expected to show up with compassion every single day.

I loved how the book didn’t lean too hard in one direction. It has humour and warmth, but it also allows space for vulnerability and emotional honesty. It felt authentic rather than dramatic, which made the emotional moments land even more.

I think medical professionals will see a lot of themselves in this story, but you definitely don’t need to work in healthcare to connect with it. At its heart, this is a story about people , about exhaustion, resilience, connection, and trying to do your best in imperfect circumstances.

It’s not flashy, but it’s heartfelt and genuine- and that’s exactly why it works.