Tag: Disability

“Hell Followed with Us” Review

Jen

The cover has a blue background with black clouds. At the bottom of the page are the ruins of several buildings in red brick. In the middle of the cover there is the figure of a person with six wings with a red eye on each wing. The person has their head turned to the left with a scar on their cheek and bandages on their hands with blood dripping from their hands and chest. There is a chain around the figure in a circle and the title is written on a ribbon at the persons legs. Written by Andrew Joseph White
Published by Peachtree Teen, June 2022
416 pages
Completed June 30, 2023

Sixteen-year-old trans boy Benji is on the run from the cult that raised him—the fundamentalist sect that unleashed Armageddon and decimated the world’s population. Desperately, he searches for a place where the cult can’t get their hands on him, or more importantly, on the bioweapon they infected him with.

But when cornered by monsters born from the destruction, Benji is rescued by a group of teens from the local Acheson LGBTQ+ Center, affectionately known as the ALC. The ALC’s leader, Nick, is gorgeous, autistic, and a deadly shot, and he knows Benji’s darkest secret: the cult’s bioweapon is mutating him into a monster deadly enough to wipe humanity from the earth once and for all.

Still, Nick offers Benji shelter among his ragtag group of queer teens, as long as Benji can control the monster and use its power to defend the ALC. Eager to belong, Benji accepts Nick’s terms…until he discovers the ALC’s mysterious leader has a hidden agenda, and more than a few secrets of his own.

This was a really good book! There’s a lot of gore and body horror but I don’t think it was as graphic as it could have been. If it was a movie or a tv show I’d probably have trouble watching because of the gore but in text it didn’t seem so bad. If you read the introduction of the book the author explains where a lot of it came from and how he felt as a teen struggling with his identity. Which is the whole book too. All of the characters were great and I liked how everything worked out. Even Nick’s “secrets” worked out well in the end. Benji was a great character to get to know. I did wonder if some things could have been explained a little better but at the same time I wasn’t sure how much the characters knew or could explain because they’re all teenagers dealing with the world they’ve been left in. I’m not sure how fully they understood everything to start with. Even Benji’s awareness of everything and understanding of what was happening seemed suspect.

“Noor” Review

Jen

The entire cover is yellow/gold with a black women from the chest up facing towards the right but with her head turned slightly forward. The women has her hair up and arranged on the back of her head and is wearing what looks like a jewel on her forehead and a necklace. Written by Nnedi Okorafor
Published by DAW, November 2021
224 pages
Completed June 20, 2023

Anwuli Okwudili prefers to be called AO. To her, these initials have always stood for Artificial Organism. AO has never really felt…natural, and that’s putting it lightly. Her parents spent most of the days before she was born praying for her peaceful passing because even in-utero she was “wrong”. But she lived. Then came the car accident years later that crippled her even further. Yet instead of viewing her strange body the way the world views it, as freakish, unnatural, even the work of the devil, AO embraces all that she is: A woman with a ton of major and necessary body augmentations. And then one day she goes to her local market and everything goes wrong.

Once on the run, she meets a Fulani herdsman named DNA and the race against time across the deserts of Northern Nigeria begins. In a world where all things are streamed, everyone is watching the “reckoning of the murderess and the terrorist” and the “saga of the wicked woman and mad man” unfold. This fast-paced, relentless journey of tribe, destiny, body, and the wonderland of technology revels in the fact that the future sometimes isn’t so predictable. Expect the unaccepted.

This was a quick fun read. All of the characters are cool and the world building was interesting. I did think it sort of ends abruptly and ambiguously. It’s not entirely clear what was going to happen next to the characters though there’s hints that they’ll be okay.

“How Long ’til Black Future Month?” Review

Jen

On the cover a young black woman is facing towards the right in profile with her long hair styled with decorations that are white geometric shapes. The shirt or dress she is wearing has a thick collar that looks like two rows of white balls. The title of the book and authors name are on the top and bottom of the cover. Written by N.K. Jemisin
Published by Orbit, November 2018
416 pages
Completed June 14, 2023

“Three-time Hugo Award winner and NYT bestselling author N. K. Jemisin challenges and delights readers with thought-provoking narratives of destruction, rebirth, and redemption that sharply examine modern society in her first collection of short fiction, which includes never-before-seen stories.”

“Spirits haunt the flooded streets of New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. In a parallel universe, a utopian society watches our world, trying to learn from our mistakes. A black mother in the Jim Crow South must save her daughter from a fey offering impossible promises. And in the Hugo award-nominated short story “The City Born Great,” a young street kid fights to give birth to an old metropolis’s soul.”

This is a great collection of short stories all written by N. K. Jemisin. Some of them are early ideas that would become her larger works. Others are stories she had written for other publications. All are great. I also highly recommend reading the introduction to the book for more background and to know where the title of the book comes from. I really enjoyed each story and will likely read more by this author at some point.

“Lakelore” Review

Jen

The book cover has two teens who appear to be standing chest deep in a lake one looking away and one facing the viewer. There are mountains and the sun visible behind them. The lake has a variety of colors - blue, green, red, orange, purple in swirls. The teens have brown skin and brown hair and thee are green butterflies on their heads. One is wearing a white shirt and the other a yellow hoodie. Written by Anna-Marie McLemore
Published by Feiwel & Friends, March 2022
304 pages
Completed: May 6, 2023

“Everyone who lives near the lake knows the stories about the world underneath it, an ethereal landscape rumored to be half-air, half-water. But Bastián Silvano and Lore Garcia are the only ones who’ve been there. Bastián grew up both above the lake and in the otherworldly space beneath it. Lore’s only seen the world under the lake once, but that one encounter changed their life and their fate.”

“Then the lines between air and water begin to blur. The world under the lake drifts above the surface. If Bastián and Lore don’t want it bringing their secrets to the surface with it, they have to stop it, and to do that, they have to work together. There’s just one problem: Bastián and Lore haven’t spoken in seven years, and working together means trusting each other with the very things they’re trying to hide.”

This is a great story with great characters. Bastián and Lore are trans nonbinary, neurodivergent Mexican American teens who find themselves in a very weird situation while figuring themselves out. The world under the lake isn’t explained in much detail but that’s mostly because no one really knows much about it anymore. Bastián was just able to access it as a child and then Lore ended up being able to access it as well. They don’t know any more about it than we do really. And the land under the lake isn’t really the main point – it’s Bastián and Lore dealing with who they are as they work through some issues. Bastián has ADHD and Lore is dyslexic and the book goes into a lot of detail about how their brains work and what their lives are like because of it. I really enjoyed reading all of that information and the way the characters interact with each other as they learn about each other. This isn’t a story where Bastián and Lore are the only ones who understand and love them for who they are – Their family and friends see them for who they are and love them deeply. Which is good because “two people against the world” stories are a little frustrating – even when it’s realistic because of the way some families. This was a good read because of the difference. The land under the lake is what brings Bastián and Lore together and helps them figure some additional things out that they needed to deal with.

“Elena Knows” Review

Jen

The cover is yellow with the profile of a woman in blue looking to the left. There's what looks like a chair over the profile - the seat and back of the chair are in red and then the legs are in blue and end up being part of the profile. The title, author's name and translator's name are the top left corner of the cover. Written by Claudia Piñeiro (Translated by Frances Riddle)
Published in English by Church Press, July 2021
Originally published in 2007 in Argentina
158 pages
Completed: April 30, 2023

“After Rita is found dead in the bell tower of the church she used to attend, the official investigation into the incident is quickly closed. Her sickly mother is the only person still determined to find the culprit. Chronicling a difficult journey across the suburbs of the city, an old debt and a revealing conversation, Elena Knows unravels the secrets of its characters and the hidden facets of authoritarianism and hypocrisy in our society.”

One more book for the Disability Readathon, which fits the last of the reading prompts – “Read a translation”.

This book is one of those complicated ones because as it turns out the characters aren’t very likable and that’s the point. Both Elena and Rita are rather mean spirited people who judge others and the whole book centers around Elena’s assumptions about her daughter. The book explores mother-daughter relationships, abortion rights, religion and disability – and it’s not nice about any of them. There are several disturbing things that happen in this book that have everything to do with how women’s bodies are treated.

The formatting was a bit difficult as the book is entirely Elena’s thoughts as she goes about her day and flashbacks to past conversations but it’s almost walls of text with the dialogue not evenly spaced out. I’m not sure if that’s a translator choice or the original author.

There’s an afterward at the end of the book that gives a bit more context about the author and the themes of the book. I’m glad that was there to get a deeper understanding of the author and the intent of the book. I’m probably going to check out the author’s other works as a result.

“Otherbound” Review

Jen

The title of the book takes up most of the cover and is split into two words Other Bound. Behind the text are the profiles of the two main characters looking away from each other. Nolan is on the left with his eyes close and Amara is on the right with her eyes open. On Nolan's side there's a house on the bottom of the cover and Amara's there's a castle. Written By Corinne Duyvis
Published By Amulet Books, June 2014
416 pages
Completed: April 25, 2023

“Amara is never alone. Not when she’s protecting the cursed princess she unwillingly serves. Not when they’re fleeing across dunes and islands and seas to stay alive. Not when she’s punished, ordered around, or neglected. She can’t be alone, because a boy from another world experiences all that alongside her, looking through her eyes. Nolan longs for a life uninterrupted. Every time he blinks, he’s yanked from his Arizona town into Amara’s mind, a world away, which makes even simple things like hobbies and homework impossible. He’s spent years as a powerless observer of Amara’s life. Amara has no idea … until he learns to control her, and they communicate for the first time. Amara is terrified. Then, she’s furious. All Amara and Nolan want is to be free of each other. But Nolan’s breakthrough has dangerous consequences. Now, they’ll have to work together to survive — and discover the truth about their connection.”

This is the fourth book I’ve read for the Disability Readathon and fits the prompt to read something from my library. I used the Libby App which connects to my local library’s ebook catalog.

Honestly this is another one where I ended up preferring another of the author’s books (“On the Edge of Gone”). That said I did enjoy this book for the most part because I really liked the characters and the way they ended up working together to resolve things. It took a lot of work to resolve the conflict and choices were made they’ll have to live with. Some things did get left unanswered but you kind of see that coming because there’s no way for the characters to really know everything. The disability repression was good too – it’s one where the disabilities are just there and not really the focus of the story which can be a good. Especially when the disabilities are the result of trauma – which in this case they were.

“The Spare Man” Review

Jen

A woman and man are standing at a bar on a space ship with stars visible above them dressed in formal attire. The woman is more towards the center of the cover and is wearing a white dress with a blue shawl, and is using a cane. The man is to the right and wearing a suit while leaning on the bar looking at the woman. On the floor to the left of the woman is a small white dog.Written by Mary Robinette Kowal
Published by Tor Books, October 2022
Number of Pages: 384
Completed: April 23, 2023

“With all the glittering banter of 1930s noir, this novel takes class, privilege, and identity theft and wraps them inside a murder mystery. Tesla Crane, heiress to the Crane fortune, and Shalmanseer Steward, a retired private detective, are on their honeymoon cruise from Earth to Mars. When Shal is framed for murder, Tesla has to find the murderer before they try to silence her husband.”

This book fits another of the prompts for the Disability Readathon I’m participating in for April: “Read a book with a person using a mobility aid on the cover” – the main character, Tesla, is using a cane on the cover.

I’m going to be honest and say I preferred Mary Robinette Kowal’s Lady Astronaut series over this book. That said I think it’s mostly because the series is a different genre and style. This book is a murder mystery set in the future (2075), while the Lady Astronaut series is an alternate history series set in the 50s through the 70s and some choices made more sense in that series.

There was stuff I did like about the book – most of the characters are great and I did like the disability representation of the main character and her service dog. Her disabilities come from an accident and she’s still in the adjustment period so she’s still adjusting to her new reality for the most part. The murder mystery and figuring out what actually happened was interesting – sometimes a little confusing but I think it was meant to be because of how it all worked out. I also like how at the end of her books the author always has a section talking about the science of the book and how she figured things out for the plot.

There was one element of the book that stuck out like a sore thumb though and it’s the amount of intelligence based insults. I know those are far too ingrained in our society, and it’s not as though all of the other books I’ve read don’t have them too but they became very noticeable in this book. Part of the reason it was so jarring was that the main character went out of her way to call out gender based insults and failure to use pronouns, but then used intelligence based insults themselves or ignored them from another characters. One of the other characters was constantly insulting a third character with some of those insults. It must be said that at the time of reading I wasn’t in the mood for seeing one -ism called out while another was being ignored or used to fight the first one. Especially when the book had disability representation that was well done.

“In Between Spaces” Review

Jen

The book cover has a light brown background with the title in the center. The bottom half is taken up by a collection of triangle shops in various shades green on the bottom corner and pink and orange along the left corner and cup the side towards the middle of the book. Full Title: “In Between Spaces: An anthology of disabled writers”
Edited by Rebecca Burke
Published by Stillhouse Press, November 2022
Number of Pages: 268
Completed: April 21, 2023

“In Between Spaces, Stillhouse Press’s first ever anthology, centers the experiences of thirty-three disabled poets, short-story writers, and essayists as they navigate the physical and emotional complexities of disability, chronic illness, neurodivergence, and mental illness.”

This book fits one of the prompts for the Disability Readathon I’m participating in for April: “Read an anthology” – which is good because April is almost over – just two weekends left.

As I’ve said before I love reading anthologies (especially for Readathons) and finding new authors to check out. This one is no exception – the majority of the stories in the book are non-fiction or poems with a few fiction stories mixed in so it’s going to be listed on the non-fiction page of my website. I really enjoyed the majority of book though I’m not sure I understood all of the poems. Which is fine – poems work better for other people I’m sure. The fiction and non-fiction stories are all mixed together and all had similar themes and settings (modern day, real world) so the only way to tell was to look at the contents of the book and see. I wish the note about fiction or non fiction has also been included with the title of the story at the beginning of each. All of the stories were written by people with disabilities and were about disabled people which I like especially for non-fiction works as we always should be the ones to tell our own stories.

“One for All” Review

Jen

Book cover for One For All depicting a young woman with her back against a building with dark brown hair and wearing a red dress with a fencing sword held up in her hand. There are several other swords of the same type pointed at her in a circle around the title of the book in the center of the cover. Written by Lillie Lainoff
Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR), March 2022
Number of Pages: 336
Completed: April 7, 2023

“One for All is a gender-bent retelling of The Three Musketeers, in which a girl with a chronic illness trains as a Musketeer and uncovers secrets, sisterhood, and self-love.”

This was a fun read. The main character has to deal with a lot of BS because of her illness before she ends up in a much better situation. I did kind of feel like things went a little to easily for her with the new group of people but it works. Maybe sometimes you do end up with an entire group of good people without having to do much work. The plot was a little predictable but it was still fun to read. I especially liked how POTs is worked into the story, which is set in 17th century France, in a way that made sense for the time without seeming unrealistic. There’s a lot to be said about how people who are disabled or chronically ill were treated at the time and now. The author also included brief explanation of POTs and how she worked it into the story at the end of the book.

“Meru” Review

Jen

Book cover of Meru showing a person standing on a rock outcropping at the bottom of a canyon with walls on either Sid e of them the sky ahead is purple. The book title is arranged vertically down the middle of the book with the author's name at the top.
Written by S.B. Divya
Published by 47North, February 2023
Number of Pages: 443
Completed: March 31, 2023

“For five centuries, human life has been restricted to Earth, while posthuman descendants called alloys freely explore the galaxy. But when the Earthlike planet of Meru is discovered, two unlikely companions venture forth to test the habitability of this unoccupied new world and the future of human-alloy relations.”

I really enjoyed this book – the world building is great and while some terms used were a bit confusing it was mostly explained as you read a long what they were referring too. I really enjoyed all of the characters involved – even one that was kind of frustrating at first. I really enjoyed how disability is used in this book as a benefit – the planet is found is actually more stable to those who have a specific disability. There’s also a lot of learning about different people and coming to understand that sometimes you don’t know everything you think you know.