horrorbutch's reviews
1267 reviews

The Science of Racism: Everything You Need to Know But Probably Don't - Yet by Keon West

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informative medium-paced

5.0

Woodworking by Emily St. James

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challenging emotional funny sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Disclaimer: I received an e-ARC from netgalley in exchange for a review.

A closeted trans woman teacher, isolated after her divorce, finds herself coming out to the only other trans person she knows, a student in her school, who came out to the entire town through a newspaper ad. While Erica, the teacher, slowly moves towards new relationships as her true self, Abigail, the teen, wants nothing more than to finish school, manage not to be dragged back into her abusive parents’ home and finally go to college and disappear into the woodwork (aka go stealth). Despite their differences and especially their age difference, Abigail and Erica form a connection through their shared identity.

The story is told in multiple POVs and I especially adored Abigail’s POV, her sarcastic teen behavior was written incredibly well (sarcastic, angry and yet caring, often making me laugh out loud) and yet so clearly hiding the massive isolation she faces, rejected by her parents and forced to live with her sister, feeling guilty for causing her pain and also feeling devasted that nobody seems to understand her own struggles. It was really fascinating to read about her development, because she starts the story as someone desperate to grow up and leave everybody who knows her past behind, which is a major reason she is so lonely. Erica’s POV was also really intriguing, her fears and self-absorption often feeling so much more immature than Abigail’s, and yet I found her actions coherent. She is a baby trans after all, caught between excitement and terror. Seeing her develop (and fuck up along the way) was incredibly heartbreaking and yet, kinda beautiful as well. She is so desperate to show the world who she really is and yet, understandably, terrified of what will happen to her if she does. There is also a secret third POV, which I won’t spoil here, but suffice to say I cried my way through that one.

The narrative is incredibly skilled at portraying the small and big joys and fears of being trans and I found myself moving from feeling so joyously happy for the characters to deeply terrified for them to wanting to shake them and tell them there’s another way and to stop being so stupid (“Erica, wait, you stupid bi-“ comes to mind for me, because I was screaming that along with Abigail). I was laughing, crying, sometimes screaming at the pages, but I enjoyed every minute of this book. You can’t help but feel for the characters, their good, bad and ugly sides, their fears and dreams and hopes are so vivid, after reading this book I felt like they were real people I had gotten to know in my actual life.

What I most enjoyed was that so many different trans women’s voices were present here. There’s women who came out young, transitioned and went stealth, older trans women who are only just starting their journey, trans women, who are out, but wish they were stealth to escape discrimination and trans women, who are stealth, but suffer from the isolation as well. There is friendship and romance, open and hidden transphobia, but also support and love and care, allies fucking up, trans people fucking up, but also trans love and joy.

I also really enjoyed the way the book made use of dead names, blurring it out behind grey boxes, comparing it to static and leaving it unsaid, except for one scene that broke my heart. It really underlined the horrible pain that caused.

Finally, I enjoyed that this book took on an often overlooked (if not outright portrayed as inherently bad) aspect of queer experience, relationships (not sexual or romantic!) between people of different ages, in this case an adult teacher and a teenage student, which in real life for obvious reasons would (& should tbh) raise an eyebrow when viewed from the outside. And yet, for our two main characters, their connection is an important aspect of their lives and one that I found incredibly interestingly portrayed. It is not endorsed as good and right imo (and I struggle with some of the reviews claiming that as a reason they rate this book lower? It is spoiled in the book’s description?), but instead showcases to me how trans people are harmed by societal transphobia and isolation, forcing us to find connection with people who we wouldn’t find connection with otherwise and engage in relationships with pretty big power imbalances and the potential dangers that could come from that.

All in all, this book reminded me that joy has to be fought for, that the pain and struggles are worth it and that there is connection and love out there regardless of how bleak it looks.

TW: accusation of grooming and csa, deadnaming, domestic abuse, eating disorder, misgendering, q-word (reclaimed), transmisogyny, transphobia, t-slur (reclaimed), suicide (mentioned), swearing (a lot of it)

Magica Riot by Kara Buchanan

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emotional funny hopeful lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

The Divine Flesh by Drew Huff

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dark emotional tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Disclaimer: I received an e-book ARC through netgalley.

This story follows a woman possessed the Divine Flesh, which takes over her body at random times. They hate each other and constantly fight for control, blaming the other for their lives being a mess. The Divine Flesh just wants to create new life (but you can’t create anything from nothing, so she needs bodies), Jennifer just wants to survive hers (former foster care kid turned drug addict and drug mule), or so they say.
The story is quite confusing at first as it just throws you into the deep end of a world where a woman sometimes blacks out and the Divine Flesh takes her over and creates her children out of Flesh. The first third of the book is a bit tough to get through because of this. The story moves fast, but I was constantly trying to slow it down, figure out if I missed anything in the world building, trying to make sense of it. But once I got over that, the story really took off and I had a really good time. There are many perspective switches, making the story feel vibrant and fleshed out (ha!), moving along at a feverish pace and dragging you along for the ride.
It’s crass, it’s gorey, it’s gross and elbow deep in the guts of everything depraved and if you allow yourself to be enveloped by that, you will have a great time. Once the story settles down in a small town in Idaho is when the character’s really get to shine, which is when the story really started to work for me. We don’t only get to explore Jennifer’s feelings, but also Daryl’s (her ex) and the Divine Flesh as she changes. There are also a multitude of side character, some worse than others and quite a few you wish would die sooner than later (looking at you Trojan!), but their perspectives also add to the unsettling feeling, add to the horror and add to the confusion and so they worked really well.
Do mind the trigger warnings, there are very few nice or kind people in this story, but if you are interested in a book about cosmic horror and filled with body horror and incredibly well written terror, this is a book to check out!

TW: ableism, abuse, animal death, animal murder, body dysmorphia, body horror, csa (mentioned), death, drugs, eating disorder (mentioned), gore, grief, gun violence, homophobia (mentioned), murder, racism, rape, sexual assault, suicide, transmisogyny (mentioned)

Shy Girl by Mia Ballard

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challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Disclaimer: I received an e-book ARC through netgalley.

Gia is unable to get a new job and has now fallen behind on rent. To fix her problem, she signs up for a sugar dating website. She has always had a bit of an obsessive relationship with the men around her, so when the man she has been writing on the sugar dating platform offers to pay her rent and help her pay off her debt if she becomes his dog for 8 hours a day… well, it doesn’t sound that bad at first. Soon Gia finds herself stuck in captivity, punished for failing to conform to the “new life” as a dog her keeper wants from her. She feels unable to fight back, afraid of the punishment she receives anytime she talks, gets up or tries to run away. This novel leads us down a harrowing trip into her psyche as she spirals deeper and struggles with the feeling that her isolation in life has lead her right to this. Nathan also manipulates her further into believing that this is something she deserves, something she somehow agreed to.

The story is dark and I liked getting to know Gia. The first third of the book examines her time before she becomes Shy Girl and her desperation and loneliness was beautifully illustrated. The next two third of the book examine how she changes, falls deep into fawning mode to ensure her survival and tries her very best to be a good dog. It also deals with her failing health, her slipping sense of herself as a person and how she has become changed through her complete dependency. Sometimes I wish it had examined the reasons for why Gia doesn’t even fantasize about harming her captor in order to get away (in the beginning). It could be that she’s too afraid of what happens if she fails or that her not fighting back allows her the feeling of being human in these much too inhuman circumstances she has been forced into or the knowledge that she will have to take a life because just hurting him a bit will not be enough or something else, but I wish it had been portrayed in more detail, as I think it would have let me understand Gia and her reactions a bit better. I did enjoy the examinations of self-destruction in here tough.

The end was delicious, gorey and fun and gross and horrible and perfect for this story. If it had come with a bit more build up, I would have still liked it a bit more, but even without that I really enjoyed it! The writing is visceral, really digging into how Gia feels during any of the various horrible things she experiences and I really enjoyed that.

All in all, an impactful story and a great addition to female rage & revenge horror.

TW: abuse (physical, psychological, sexual), abduction, cannibalism, dehumanization, eye trauma, miscarriage, parasite infection, sexual abuse, unsafe eating (dogfood, uncooked meat & glass)

Reverent: An Anthology of Divinity by Quinton Li

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challenging emotional hopeful inspiring sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Disclaimer: I received an e-book ARC in exchange for my review by the publisher.

A really fun collection of stories centering around divinity and whatever that means to a person. Many of the pieces collected here are speculative or fantastical, some are more grounded in reality, some are nonfiction essays, and all in all this was a very well rounded anthology that I enjoyed. While I did not enjoy every piece in here, I liked the variety of myths that are presented and I liked the diversity of characters. There are quite a few trans, queer and disabled characters and I really enjoyed that. The genres of the stories also vary, but there are quite a few horror stories, which I really liked as someone who enjoys seeing the terror in divinity, as well as romance and self-discovery stories. While not every story was one that I enjoyed, as is usually the case with anthologies, there are quite a lot that I really loved (as you can see by the many stories I have marked as my favs in my list below :D) and most importantly I did not feel as if the stories in this collection were repeating or getting boring.

While I found it really interesting that there aren’t just fictional pieces in here, but also some academic stories, I wasn’t feeling particularly good about the choice to use a different font for these stories? I found it made the academic texts harder to read than they needed to be, both bc it a) distracted my reading flow and b) I just found the font itself harder to deal with, but maybe that has something to do with the way it was shown on my screen? I’m not sure if you could change it if you wanted.

I did enjoy that trigger warnings are provided in the beginning of the book :).

All in all, a really enjoyable read and one that I can just recommend you if you are interested in a varied and fascinating reflection on divinity.

*FAV* The Far Too Holy and the Angels Falling Short by Alice Scott: A heartbreaking story about rich abusive parents and the children that fail to conform to their ideals as they try to reintroduce angelic magic to their bloodline. I always adore stories about siblings trying to protect each other and the relationship between the two siblings was super cute. All in all, an interesting story examining legacy and expectations and two children trying to free themselves from oppressive parents.
TW: ableism, child abuse (physical, emotional, psychological), murder (off page), transphobia (deadnaming, misgendering), violence

Genesis 19:1-11 by Shepard DiStasio: A short, but heartbreaking poem, crafting some really powerful imagery around gender dysphoria and religious trauma
TW: gender dysphoria, parental neglect, religious trauma, suicidal ideation/imagery, transphobia (internalized + external), traumatic birth

*FAV* Relicário by Kate Duarte: A teenage girl knows she has to make a better future for her daughter. An intriguing story combining religious elements with a revenge plot against horrible husbands. I liked it.
TW: childbirth, menstruation, murder, sexism, vomit

*FAV* Language of the Gods: The Use of Music in Vietnamese Shamanic Rituals by Solar Hoáng: This essay examines a Vietnamese shamanic ritual, linking it to cultural backgrounds and actual academic research. A really interesting piece and even though it is quite different than what I expected from this anthology, I really loved it!

*FAV* Condemn Me by Andromeda Ruins: A trans man is told by a priest that his desire to become himself means he’s falling for the temptation to make himself God. This story takes that literally and explores the horror and joy of suddenly changing. Very gorey, very fun, I loved it!
TW: body horror, desecration of religion, gore, religious bigotry, transphobia

*FAV* I Am A God and So Is Everybody Else but This Is About Me! By Jeanea Blair: Set in a world where people discover that everybody is God and the societal fallout of that, including a variety of sources to explore this world from a report on a talk to interviews. Interesting character voices and really interesting concept, but also quite confusing. Really builds up a feeling as if this is an alternative world and there should be so much more information for me to discover. I liked that.
TW: death, delusions, suicide

*FAV* Psappha’s Progeny by Miranda Jensen: A young woman prays to Sappho instead of the catholic God her mother wants her to pray to. Interesting, about art and creation, with some really fascinating rituals and finding divinity in queerness. I loved it!
TW: blood sacrifice, catholic prejudice, exorcism, lesbophobia (implied)

*FAV* i saw the divine in the waffle house sign by Olive J. Kelley: A short poem about love as divinity that can only exist in secret. Heartbreaking and beautiful.

*FAV* Posts from God by Casper E. Falls: A disabled nonbinary person’s life goes to absolute shit. They lose their job, their mom does not believe they are disabled, and their boyfriend has abandoned all Covid-Safeguards in order to get laid. But at least God is talking to them on social media? Really heartbreaking story, that makes me so mad for the main character. The disabled solidarity made me cry tears of joy though. I really loved this short story so much, it was lovely.
TW: ableism, chronic illness, covid pandemic, murder (referenced), parental neglect, relationship betrayal, societal neglect, stalking (referenced), threat of homelessness, transphobia, unemployment, vomiting

mother of monsters, including me by Ivy L. James: A short poem about embracing your monstrosity, very interesting, loved the inclusion of nordic mythology.

*FAV* A Song for the Roosters by DC Guevara: A short story about a woman, unfulfilled by her life as a daughter and wife, failing to perform well enough for her mother and husband, who encounters divinity in the forest. Lovely and I really enjoyed the way the Puerto Rican culture was presented here and the way Spanish was used to give a sense of the place.
TW: abusive parents (verbal), blood, colonialism (minor), parental neglect, periods, pregnancy, sexual content (mild)

*FAV* The Breath of Life by Engel Williams: A story about an artist’s creation, come to life. Very Frankenstein-esque, including the existence of angels, this story follows an artist’s first living, breathing creation, born from his blood, and her two siblings. Haunting, but really interesting.
TW: animal death, blood, death (mention), violence

The Girl I Was Born is the Boy I’ve Become’s Knight in Shining Armor by Bucky A. Wolfe: A short story about gender as divinity. Interesting, but very short.
TW: gender dysphoria

Severin and the Dark by Harvey Oliver Baxter: A story of a growing up, following a child who enters puberty much earlier than others and the dysphoria that accompanies that. Told through stories of being haunted and repressing yourself, this story was really good at creating an oppressive atmosphere. I liked it!
TW: death (implied), eating disorder (implied), gender dysphoria, hallucinations (one with sexual implications), hate crimes (mention), murder (implied), transphobia

A Love Letter to the Devil by Riley Daemon: Exactly what the title promises. Full of yearning and desire.

A Prayer for Devouring by Ares Macabre: Sex as worship, love as divinity, always a great thing to read about.
TW: slight sexual content

A Kiss For My Beloved by Perla Zul: A queer retelling of Judas and Jesus. Heartbreaking in Judas’ devotion, but personally not something I’m suuuper interested in (it is, after all, a staple of queer Christian retellings and so nothing groundbreaking to me).
TW: suicide

The Patron Saint of One-Way Trips by C.J. Ellison: A hiking trip turns into an exploration of the afterlife as the main character tries to comfort others along their journey. Interesting and I really liked the twist at the end.
TW: animal death (implied), car crash, death

The Angelic Function: An Essay Concerning the Angel’s Place in Judaeo-Christian Literature by Viktor E. Grace Lang: An essay exploring exactly what the title suggests. Unfortunately, not personally interesting to me, but if you are interested in Theology and the analysis of religious literature and role of angels in religion this might be more interesting to you.

*FAV* Heaven Is Near by K.T. Angelo: A hiking vacation turns into a time of discovery for a young man questioning his sexuality. But does the angel he encountered really have his best interests at heart? Told through found journal entries, the dread creeps in wonderfully and the end is really scary. I love a good horror story set in the forest.
TW: blood, death, dubious consent, murder, sexual content, vomit

The Silent Dark by Helen Z. Dong: A woman blessed with the ability to share her life force finds herself having to sell her hours away in order to earn just a little bit of money in a world filled with societal inequality. Interesting world building and with an open end, this story is one I think I would like to read more about.
TW: poverty

Pain and Comfort by Tea Campbell: A short personal story about a person with chronic pain finding relief in the worship of the Celtic Goddess Brighid.
TW: mentions of colonialism

Owenvsv (O-Way-Nuh-Suh) by Enoli Lee: A story about a transmasculine person trying to connect with his native ancestry, which his mother has abandoned to fit in with white America. About finding Divinity in connection.
TW: racism (mention), skin bleaching, transphobia

Words to The Wind by Tien Lee: A short story about a priestess of the Wind in a temple, communicating with a non-believer through letters. Interesting world building and a fascinating exploration of religion.

Moontide by Aidan Sparks: A worshipper of The Divine Feminine finds their worship blocked through the transphobia of their Goddess, who refuses to accept them as they are. The story dives into the harm that claiming one gender as inherently safe and pure and another as harmful does to people, who do not fit with the role. The end is a bit abrupt, and I have to say I personally didn’t quite get the sudden change in direction? Very interesting imagery though!
TW: blood, body horror, body invasion, gender dysphoria, genitalia mention

*FAV* Life, Death and Daisy Chains by Elise Georgeson: Death is tired and asks Life’s human daughter to take over Their job so They can rest. A heartbreaking story about mortality.
TW: death (of family member and a child)

The Autopsy of Icarus by A.R Zeitler: Icarus, as an ill-fate lovestruck boy, and Apollo grieving about his death. It’s… okay? A bit insta-love on Apollo’s part, very dramatic in the way Greek myths are. If you like gay retellings of Greek myths, this will probably more your style than it was mine.
TW: autopsy, corpse, death

*FAV* The Comforts of Home by Alex Harvey-Rivas: An autistic person is struggling with reclaiming their life after a breakup that leaves them trying to shed all the ways they tried to change themselves to conform to their girlfriend’s expectations. The ableism made me so mad (+ she took the cat, which… as a lesbian? Fighting words), but I really adored reading about the main character reconnecting with their faith.
TW: ableism, vomit

*FAV* Blue Screen Oracle by H.S. Wolfe: A person in a post-apocalyptic world living with a chronic autoimmune disease, who wants to create artificial intelligence so they won’t be lonely anymore. This story made me cry a bunch, it is incredibly sweet despite the horrors of this world.
TW: cannibalism (implied), corpse, death (major character), severe chronic illness (mention and discussion of)

Skin by Kathe Koja

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challenging dark emotional tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Disclaimer: I received an e-ARC from netgalley in exchange for a review.

This story follows Tess, a welding artist, stuck in her daily routine and floundering, when she meets Bibi, a dancer, always looking to push her art to new heights. They join forces, perform together, first only a performance that Tess welds during. While Tess moves further into the mechanical, trying to figure out giant robots, Bibi moves further into cutting and body modification on herself and others. Their rise to fame comes to an abrupt and brutal stop after an accidental death during a performance, sending Tess and Bibi spiraling apart, only tangentially connected anymore by another performer called Michael, who sometimes brings Tess news about Bibi and slowly pushes his way into her life.

The story is brutal and sets a fast pace, told in a stream-of-consciousness way, that barely leaves time to breathe between scene. Getting used to the writing took a bit of time, but once you get into it it’s really hard to stop. I really enjoyed it.

The body horror is gruesome, as is the emotional pain of Tess (who we follow closely as the main narrator) and the way we watch Bibi spiral deeper and deeper into self-destructive body modifications. The relationship between Tess and Bibi, the ways they connect, the ways they clash, their love-to-hate-to-obsession path was incredibly interesting. I also adored the way Tess hides from her own feelings, by hiding behind her welding, punishing herself and her body in much the same way Bibi is doing, while turning her nose up at Bibi’s way of doing things. It was really intriguing.

None of the characters could be really described as loveable. At best they are obsessive (Tess), at worst they push others into harm (Bibi), while never treating themselves better than they treat others. It was horrifying to read, body horror combining with psychological horror combining with love and friendship and care as well as hate and betrayal and wanting to destroy another person.

All in all this is a story about art and about the body and the clash between the organic and the mechanical, featuring self-(and others-)harm, the many, many way to fill the emptiness and love that is hate that is love that is hate.

TW: self-harm, body modification, death, grief, jealousy, lesbophobia, manipulation, suicide attempt, toxic relation/friendship, torture, physical abuse, injury, gore, body horror, blood, ableism, forced institutionalization (minor)

Content Warnings

How to Be Disabled in a Pandemic by Rayna Rapp, Mara Mills, Faye Ginsburg, Harris Kornstein

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challenging emotional informative reflective medium-paced

5.0

Disclaimer: I received an e-ARC from netgalley in exchange for a review.

This book examines various perspectives on the Covid-19 perspective throughout New York through a Disabled lens. The first part of the book focuses on various living environments and how that affected a person’s experience during the beginning of the pandemic (including imprisoned people, unhoused people, people who rely on at-home caring and people in nursing homes and long-term care facilities and finally children in special education). Part 2 of the novel focusses on crip pandemic doulaship concerning Long Covid and ME, as well as the way some disabled people were left behind in the pandemic (here with a focus on blind people). The next few chapters focus on certain racial demographics, including Chinese-Americans in senior centers, Black mothers experiencing mental health issues as well as the especially precarious situation of immigrant workers. One chapter also focusses on prison abolitionism and how activism changed during the pandemic. The last chapters focus on the necessity of mutual aid for autistic people and the lives of disabled artists.
One thing that really made this book stand out for me was the fact that it included so many different perspectives, often focusing on those most marginalized. The essays here are written by disabled people or through reporting on interviews with disabled people, as well as experts in disability studies, activism and journalism as well as quite a few people that overlap between those two. There are a lot of real life examples and a ton of links and sources for future reading material for the subjects portrayed here.
If you are interested in Disability Activism or the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the lives of disabled New Yorkers as well as any of the topics I mentioned in the first paragraph of this review, do yourself a favor and check this book out. I cried a few times, since a lot of the topics examined here are focused on the way Covid-19 increased injustices in our society and thus weren’t easy reads, but I found it incredibly important.

Chapter 1 featuring interviews of people who lived through the early years of the Covid-19 pandemic in prison was harrowing. Not only were prisoners kept from information and denied protective gear (and things such as social distancing or clean air are an illusion), but if you did get sick you were sent into isolation instead of receiving medical treatment. One of the interviewees termed it as “punished for being sick”. Covid-19 and the rules and regulations accompanying it were seen as just another tool to force compliance in the population, but when someone was in need of actual help, they were ignored and punished. A very hard-to-read start into this collection, but one that I found incredibly important.
Chapter 2 focusses on the experience of immigrants and the various ways they were excluded from financial support to avoid getting sick, while simultaneously having to fear hospitals as a place in which deportation can occur. The experiences of immigrants in detention centers also heavily overlap with the experiences of imprisoned people, but the increased vulnerability of this population due to even less access to legal safety structures and their exclusion from most forms of governmental support really underlined how Covid-19 exasperates already existing structures of oppression to even more dangerous levels.
Chapter 3 focusses on the homeless population of New York, comparing the way homeless people were treated during the HIV-pandemic and the similarities to Covid-19 and the various different ways of government funded shelter (including individual shelter in a hotel room) influences the lives of disabled homeless people.
Chapter 4 examines the changes in transport (both public and private), as well as the changes in digital accessibility on disabled lives. Since disabled and at-risk populations where heavily discouraged from using mass public transport, different and sometimes much more accessible solutions for transport where found, which really helped some people out. I particularly found the way increased availability of delivery services was viewed critically as something that is very beneficial for disabled people, but also exploits labor, important.
Chapter 5 looks at the way triage was implemented during the Covid-19 pandemic and the use of Ventilators was restricted. It examines the way plans where made for just this scenario and the reality of implementation, as well as the various and different plans implemented in different hospitals around New York. Very much focused on the medicinal and statistical aspects, but very, very interesting.
Chapter 6 focusses on schools, in particular special education, and how students with disabilities and their families experienced the pandemic, once again showing that already existing inequalities in schooling and opportunities where increased sharply through the pandemic and made all the more visible and destructive. This chapter also includes the voices of mothers desperate for their children to return to in person schooling after the first year of lockdown as their children really struggled with remote learning or faced technological barriers of access and the mothers, who wanted to keep remote access to learning available as it protected their children from infection and for some increased their learning ability due to removing barriers of access. To me this illustrated the need for a diverse approach to teaching and learning in all schools in a really interesting and necessary way.
Chapter 7 examines the changes in care for intellectually or developmentally disabled people with in-home carers or those living in institutions as healthcare personnel grew sick themselves, refused to vaccinate and mask or quit their job. There are also interviews with parents, who function as caretakers to their disabled children, and their fear to die and leave their children in unclear support systems. I really found it fascinating how this text examined the struggles of ever-changing routines during the pandemic and how that affected people. In the last third of this chapter the text also looks at the creation of art and how Zoom and phone calls or texting to check in allowed for connection between disabled artist collectives, who wouldn’t have met otherwise.
Chapter 8 is the beginning of the second part of this book, examining disability communities and kinship. This chapter looks at ME activism and how the people affected with it where some of the first to talk about the long-term dangers of the pandemic, the hope that the increased focus on ME through Long Covid would finally increase funding and find a cure as well as the complicated feeling that ME was ignored for so long and is still sometimes ignored in favor of Long Covid, as well as the fear of the time when healthcare might move on from Long Covid, leaving those affected behind just like people with ME have been left behind before.
Chapter 9 focusses on the access needs of blind people during the pandemic. I really found the interview about how masking changed the way blind and visually impaired people picked up sound cues in their environment and thus required a bigger adjustment period, as well as how the lack of touch (both with others and with objects in daily use) was difficult to deal with. Similarly to some other pieces in this collection so far this essay also deals with the way that accessibility created during the pandemic is already being rolled back again, regardless of how many people will be left behind once more in the push to “return to normal”.
Chapter 10 introduces a senior center for elderly Chinese immigrants and analyses their ideals of “successful aging” and how that overlaps with ideas of the “model minority”, as well as how they experienced the Covid-19 pandemic and the sharp incline of anti-Asian hatecrimes. I was particularly interested in the examination of how disability is viewed by the people in the center themselves and seeing how that ties back to ideas surrounding disability in China before the 1980s.
Chapter 11 returns once more to the carceral system and focusses on prison abolitionism and community outreach for incarcerated people as well as support for survivors of violence. I also found it really important that this chapter takes into account the livelihoods of disabled sex workers and how their lives were impacted during the first year of the pandemic.
Chapter 12 focusses on Black motherhood with a specific focus on Black women with mental health issues. It was harrowing to read how the lack of support in labor during the beginning of the pandemic harmed birthing people, especially as Doulas were prohibited from offering support to their patients due to visitor restrictions.
Chapter 13 examines Disability Justice and Mutual Aid in autistic communities in New York during the pandemic and in France. The autistic individuals portrayed here sometimes benefitted from the switch to digital living and in particular from the increased governmental funding, while others suffered from the isolation. I really enjoyed how much this piece emphasized the importance of community and taking care of each other.
Chapter 14 focusses on making art while in bed, sometimes made by disabled people who stay indoors during the pandemic, whereas other disabled people make all their art from their bed. An interesting, but comparatively relatively short chapter.
Chapter 15 reports the experiences of a disabled journalist, who wrote various articles about how COVID-19 affected disabled people. Hearing about the many people, who were interviewed, but couldn’t be mentioned in the limited scope of the articles was heartbreaking. I did really enjoy the ending of the article, which also mentions how important it is to uplift Disabled Joy.
The collection closes with a speech by Judith Heumann, in which she addresses the experiences of disabled people during the pandemic.

Content Warnings

Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness by Da’Shaun Harrison

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challenging informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.5

Swift River by Essie Chambers

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challenging emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Content Warnings

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horrorbutch's reviews 1267 reviews

horrorbutch's reviews
1267 reviews