wandering_canuck's review

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challenging dark emotional hopeful informative reflective medium-paced

5.0

Beautiful and raw, this collection of essays is mind-blowingly honest and unapologetic. Told from the first person, these stories are wonderful complex and offer a glimpse into the just as complex and varied experiences of disabled people. 

This is exactly what you don't expect to read: unapologetic, candid, genuine tales of the lived disabled experience. Do not expect inspiration porn or movie of the week stories of overcoming. This book gives space and voice to the realities of the day to day lived experiences of disabled people.

This book served to highlight my shameful ignorance and forced me to confront some of my own biases. This isn't a one-and-done type of book. I challenge you to read this book and not have your world shook. 

Wong does a fantastic job of bringing together many types of voices. A common theme throughout is the unjust marginalization of disabled people and it's intersectionality with other invisibilized qualities, such as poverty, queerness, size, and race. 

This is an absolute must-read and is deserving of a permanent spot on your bookshelf. 

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waybeyondblue's review against another edition

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challenging emotional hopeful informative reflective medium-paced

5.0


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maddy4prezident's review

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emotional informative reflective fast-paced

3.75

Read this book for a book club at work, and overall, I really enjoyed it. I thought the flow and thematic ties in the essays were excellent, and I loved that they all offered very beautiful and powerful perspectives on disability and disability justice. Some of the essays felt slightly more basic and redundant than others, but overall it was really enjoyable and informative.

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yourfavavery's review

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challenging emotional informative

4.75


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chronicacademia's review

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dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

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xfallenxnightx's review against another edition

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challenging informative reflective medium-paced

5.0


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kerrygetsliterary's review

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challenging emotional informative reflective sad medium-paced

5.0


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breanneisdeadinside's review

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emotional hopeful informative reflective fast-paced

5.0


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rorikae's review against another edition

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challenging emotional hopeful informative reflective fast-paced

4.5

'Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century' edited by Alice Wong is a great collection of essays by disabled authors that covers a range of subjects. The collection is broken up into four sections: Being, Becoming, Doing, and Connecting and each section has a number of different essays each written by a different author. 
One of my favorite things about this collection is that it covers so many topics and perspectives. Wong did an exceptional job of gathering a diverse group both in terms of race and sexuality as well as disability and gender identity. As such, this is a great starting point for someone interested in finding more authors to follow and getting glimpses into the struggles and celebrations that come with being disabled. Many of these essays deal with difficult subjects including ableism, sexual assault, racism, and more but equally the essays cover creating space, connection, and community. 
I listened to the audiobook, which was a great experience though my one issue is that some of the essays seem quite short. There are so many essays that the length and specificity varies widely. I found that my favorite pieces tended to be the longer pieces and some of my favorites included 'Radical Visibility: A Disabled Queer Clothing Reform Movement Manifesto' by Sky Cubacub, 'Why My Novel Is Dedicated to My Disabled Friend Maddy' by A. H. Reaume, and 'On NYCs Paratransit, Fighting for Safety, Respect, and Human Dignity' by Britney Wilson. 
I think this is essential reading and I will definitely be using it as a jumping off point to explore more works by these authors. 

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ageckocalledachilles's review against another edition

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challenging emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

5.0

Everyone should read this. It covers a multitude of disability rights issues as well as being incredibly intersectional. Some sections discuss very difficult/triggering issues, but many of these come with content warnings 

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