Reviews with content warning for Chronic illness - Disfigured: On Fairy Tales, Disability, and Making Space

Please see content warnings. In addition to discrimination against disabled people, the narrator also experiences extreme depression and wants to not exist anymore. It is hard to rate memoirs and this work is part memoir and part essays, so my rating is more applicable to the essays content. I really liked her perspective and I hadn’t considered the fairy tales from the disability aspect, so I appreciated it overall. It feels a little on the nose to say, this is an accessible text, regarding writing about disabilities, but it is an accessible read. The author writes clearly and engagingly. This could serve as a good intro for people wanting to learn more about disabled people and the challenges they face. The author looks at disabilities in fairy tales and how they are dealt with, and what that could mean for the world in which the stories are being told. For abled people, it is easier to see ourselves in fairy tales and other stories, or imagine ourselves the princess or brave hero. But disabled people often see themselves as someone to be fixed, or even the villain, rather than also being able to see themselves as the heroes and heroines.
However, as the chapters went on, the fairy tale connection/analysis felt like it was just name checked, with very brief discussions. From additional info at the end of the book, I read that one chapter was published as an article. While I am not sure if it was before, during, or after the writing of the book, that chapter had stood out to me, even before I knew it was published elsewhere. I can see the connection the author is making, but it felt a bit like, one of these things is not like the other. Unfortunately, the text also felt a bit repetitive toward the end; it felt like it lost purpose or focus. The author asks a lot of questions about dreaming of a different world or life, "What would it mean to a disabled girl to see X?" "What if the world looked like Y?" I did appreciate that she wrote about different models, like Medical model and Social model, etc, as those were not terms I had heard, so I definitely learned something, and I am very glad to have read this book.
(Amusing side note: I swear a Booktuber described this as fairy tale re-tellings about disabled people, and I clearly didn't look at the sub-title, so I was quite surprised to read the forward and discover this was non-fiction.)

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overbooked207's review

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dark emotional hopeful informative reflective fast-paced

5.0

📖 Disfigured: On Fairy Tales, Disability, and Making Space by Amanda Leduc Book Review 📖

9th and last book of January 2023 and 9th of the year:

“I have nothing to prove to the world because the world has everything to prove to me. It is the world's responsibility to make space for my body, my words, my lopsided gait - our bodies, our words, our ways of moving through the world - to hold my childhood dreams of being a princess and a superhero close and help me understand that there is no need to want to be either. To start telling different stories about a body that might just look like mine, and reshaping the world to fit them. I am already enough. There is no need to be more.” - Amanda Leduc.

Discussing the portrayals of disability in fairy tales throughout history and how those representations influenced the people and world around them, this nonfiction book was informative and is one I definitely recommend! I also highly recommend picking up more books like this afterward to continue learning such as Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-first Century edited by Alice Wong! TWs for ableism, abuse, body horror, bullying, cancer, chronic illness, depression, gun violence, incest, medical content, mental illness, rape, and suicidal thoughts📚🌹🗡🧜👨‍🦽🦻

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talonsontypewriters's review against another edition

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informative reflective medium-paced

4.0

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caitlynleahy's review

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challenging informative reflective medium-paced

4.5

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spellygirl's review against another edition

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challenging informative inspiring reflective slow-paced

4.0

It's a good book and worth a read. It gained an extra star for being about a theme close to my heart, being disabled myself.

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keatynbergsten's review

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challenging informative reflective medium-paced

3.75

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plantbasedbride's review

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challenging informative medium-paced

5.0

A fascinating and eye-opening exploration of the connection between fairytales and disability. Amanda LeDuc did an excellent job of compiling a tremendous amount of information into a compulsively readable, concise, and understandable format.

Disability and mental illness are so often vilified in the stories we consume; used as shorthand to indicate that someone is unworthy or wicked. A trope in lazy writing that directly correlates with how disabled and mentally ill people are treated in their day-to-day lives.

How does it feel for a young person consuming media such as The Little Mermaid to see themselves represented in a way they never had, only to find that the heroine is magically cured of her "ailments" and gets her happy ending as an able-bodied woman, with legs and a voice.

How does this reinforcement of the idea that a happy ending is inextricably linked with able bodiedness impact our preconceived notions and biases as we grow up?

This is a world-view shifting book that everyone should read.

VIDEO REVIEW: https://youtu.be/Z6jPExstT1Y

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