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I don’t know why but I really procrastinated from writing a review for The Ables and naturally, quite some time has passed (almost a year!) and I don’t remember every detail. To be honest, I’ve lost my interest in CinemaSins since then and unsubscribed from them. After recapitulating the novel and writing this review, I lowered my rating from originally three stars to two stars.
The basic premise of this novel intrigued me instantly, but the execution was not that great. The plot was often kind of predictable and unrealistic and this is surprising since Scott is noticing those things in movies but not in his own work. But the novel throws in some creative ideas, like the protagonists combining their superpowers or integrating them into their day to day live. There were also some interesting moments, especially towards the end, and some of the twists were able to surprise me.
But let’s talk about the representation in this novel. As far as I’m aware, Scott himself is not disabled and I strongly assume that he had no sensibility readers. It becomes obvious that he hasn’t done his research and I wish he would’ve because this is so important when writing about disability when you’re not disabled yourself. The lack of research becomes especially clear in my opinion when it comes to the characters. Donnie is a character with down syndrome but the depiction of it reminded me so much of Forrest Gump which is not exactly great since I don’t think that Forrest has down syndrome? I also had the feeling that that there was not enough research done around what it means to be blind and how their life differs from the life of people that can see. How would Phillip be able to visualize something like he could see when he’s blind since birth? Sometimes, things are even described as he could see them. There’s as well so much internalized ableism and the narrative of “overcoming a disability” is used so much throughout the novel, without even once reflecting on it.
Coming to the writing style, it was okay. Some scenes were more atmospheric while other couldn’t transport the atmosphere that they want to, and there was some info dumping. I normally never read self-published books because I am not using Amazon (yes, I know, Goodreads belongs to them, and I hate everything about this) and you could notice here that The Ables are indeed self-published because there are many typos and some formatting mistakes here and there.
I generally liked the three main characters, and they had enough depth. The depiction of their emotions though was again quite ambivalent. Phillip’s reactions were not always understandable, for example, I wished he showed more emotions when he got to know that superpowers do in fact exist. Some of his feelings on the other side were depicted so well, like when he was mourning over Donnie’ supposed death . Another problem is the lack of female characters in the story and the cliché gender roles. The main villain was also very cliché with him telling his evil plans to the protagonists.
In the end, The Ables tries to representative, but a lack of research becomes clear throughout the novel. With some sensibility readers, the book could’ve been so much better and inclusive. But instead, it is focused on “overcoming” disability instead of incorporating them into the story creatively – and Scott shows that he has this creativity.