Having been a huge fan of Andrea Seigel’s debut novel Like the Red Panda, I couldn’t wait to read her second full-length work To Feel Stuff. Seigel brings the same cynical wit to her sophomore effort. The main character, Elodie Harrington, is reminiscent of Panda’s Stella Parrish. However, while Stella longs to end her life, Elodie is matter-of-factly resigned to accept a destiny she has always been skeptical of.

To fully summarize the plot of To Feel Stuff would be a disservice to potential readers because Seigel allows it to unravel so beautifully. I shall do my best without destroying the mystery that Seigel so carefully lays out. To Feel Stuff is the story of Elodie Harrington, a student at Brown University who has spent most of her college career suffering through innumerable illnesses both rare and common, although all have been temporary. When the story opens, Elodie has taken permanent residence in the university infirmary. It is here that she meets Chess Hunter, a fellow Brown student and attack victim who moves into the infirmary while his injuries heal so he can walk again. The third main player is Dr. Mark Kirschling, a physician who has been studying Elodie’s strange case.

The entire narrative is told through three devices: a letter Elodie writes to Chess, Chess’s own letter response, and Dr. Kirschling’s article on Elodie in The Journal of Parapsychology. Seigel brilliantly and effortlessly weaves between the main devices. The reader gets a sense that this is the way the story must be told; it is the only way to access the character’s thoughts and unravel the mystery of Elodie slowly. It is also an extremely telling character detail: Elodie’s inability to waste words anywhere but paper, Chess’s attempt to reach out and connect to Elodie in her own language, and Dr. Kirschling’s detached, professional skepticism and relationship with Elodie. Nobody creates female characters or writes romance like Seigel—so realistically, knowing that love may not save a person from his or herself, but it can make life a little more livable.

I won’t say more for fear of ruining this wonderful story, but To Feel Stuff is a must-read. Part ghost story, part romance, part medical mystery, it is a novel that defies genre. Seigel proves with her second effort that the praise lavished on her debut was much-deserved. I eagerly anticipate what this fresh literary voice has in store for us in the future.