Reviews with content warning for Sexual assault - Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century

If you’re looking to read this and be inspired - don’t. “The word inspired is reviled by many in the disability community, who often are the subject of pity or undue praise merely for existing. But disabled people don’t exist to make abled people feel better about their abledness.”

I realized that before I read Get a Life, Chloe Brown, I don’t think I have ever read a book about a person with a disability, or by a person with a disability. And that’s on me! One of the things I do truly love about Booksta is being exposed to so many different books ranging in so many topics and voices that I wouldn’t normally read or even think to read. After seeing many followers, whose rec’s I always trust, hype this anthology up I knew I had to read it. And I’m really glad I did.

Alice Wong has done an extraordinary job at putting together a collection with a huge range of perspectives and life experiences. For people like me, unfamiliar with disability literature, this served as a great introduction to disability theory.

Through interviews, speeches, essays, and more, Disability Visibility covers topics from love to the Me Too movement, the horrors of the industrial prison complex, the shortcomings of the fashion industry, and BLM. You will get angry, you will laugh, you will cry. A truly wonderful reading experience. This is a 10/10 rec for me.

Content Warnings

allison_21's review against another edition

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challenging emotional informative medium-paced

4.75

It's so important to hear stories from different perspectives, and to hear directly from groups that are so often marginalized. I found this book to be powerful not because it was trying to be inspirational (as it wasn't), but because it came from people sharing their own experiences. Parts of it left me encouraged, and parts left me outraged that events like those described happen to people, and not only that, but are fully allowed to happen within our current systems and laws. Thanks goes to the authors who shared their stories.

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yasminreads's review against another edition

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challenging emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective slow-paced

5.0

Incredible insight into so many different personal experiences. I bought this book with the intention of educating myself but I gained so much more. The joy, strength and spirit of each writer is palpable. Its a very well curated book where each essay is as good as the one before. Each piece of writing will include a content warning if required so if any I've listed put you off, just know that they are not applicable to the entire work.

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autumn_alwaysreadingseason's review against another edition

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informative medium-paced

4.0

This collection features a range of essays from authors with a variety of disabilities and interests. Topics revolve around disability justice and fighting stereotypes. There are mentions of historical figures, arguments, and laws (genocide, ADA, NYC's paratransit system, misconceptions about sexuality) as well as recent campaigns, hashtags, and reclamation that dismantle them. Each essay is accompanied by a set of content warnings for readers.

Favorites:
"There's a Mathematical Equation that Proves I'm Ugly" by Ariel Henley
"The Erasure of Indigenous People in Chronic Illness" by Jen Deerinwater
"Radical Visibility" by Sky Cubacub
"Guide Dogs Don't Lead People. We Wander As One" by Haben Girma
"Imposter Syndrome and Parenting with a Disability" by Jessica Slice
"Incontinence is a Public Health Issue - And We Need to Talk About It" bu Mari Ramsawakh
"The Fearless Benjamin Lay" by Eugene Grant
"Love Means Never Having to Say... Anything" by Jamison Hill

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