With a voice that is wise, irreverent, and filled with sharp humor, Wait, It Gets Worse is a story about following all the rules only to learn the hard way that control is a lie and an illusion, and that love will save your life.

Lydia Slaby was thirty-three years old and had everything she believed would make her happy: three fancy private school degrees; a successful husband who was in the inner circles of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign; a high-paying job as an attorney — even an enviable yoga practice. But under the surface Lydia’s life was in free-fall. Her new marriage was one argument after another, she had a job she never wanted, and for some reason she had begun to rapidly lose weight and turn a strange shade of yellowish-green. When she made a doctor’s appointment to talk about the toll of extreme stress, she was instead admitted with a diagnosis of lymphoma.

As a cancer survivor, Lydia tries to piece back together her marriage, her career, and her own worth. She begins to rewrite her value as a human being and build her own version of faith until, finally, she is moving forward instead of back. It’s an imperfect rebirth, but ​“perfection” is something she must abandon if she is to at last find the perspective that will open a new, calm, healthy life.