Category: Read This Book

[CW: ableism, eugenics, attempted suicide]

As a disabled person who loves books, I’m always looking for more stories about other disabled people and the lives they lead. But sometimes these books can be hard to find, and even when I CAN find them, they aren’t available in a format I can read. As part of my condition, I can’t read print books, but not every book is available as an audiobook. So when a friend volunteered to read this book to me, I gave a hearty, “Yes, please!”

The White Bathing Hut is about a Norwegian man who has a disease where his muscles deteriorate over time. When the doctor first diagnoses him at fifteen, he’s not sure that he wants to keep living. But he decides to hang on and discovers that life still has so many beautiful things left to offer. Over the years, he learns that his illness is genetic, but no one in his father’s family has the condition. When he asks his mother, she refuses to acknowledge the extent of his condition, let alone discuss her family’s medical history.

With The White Bathing Hut, Steen also comments on Norway’s history with eugenics. And while they denounce any practice of that now, the novel’s protagonist deals with constant ableism that’s still very much part of his modern experience as a person with a genetically inherited disability.

This is one of those books that found me at just the right time. As someone with more than one genetic disability, I’m all too aware of America’s love of eugenics and who may or may not have “the best quality of life.” But there is a lot of wisdom and encouragement in this novel. Steen shares the same genetic condition as his protagonist, and in a trailer for an upcoming documentary on his life, Steen describes his own mental health spiral after his diagnosis. But he goes on to say, “I’m glad I gave life a chance.”

Bree Matthews and her best friend Alice are attending the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill Early College Program. Bree is Black and Alice is Taiwanese-American and they saw this program as the best way for two girls from marginalized backgrounds to get out of their small, rural North Carolina town. Bree’s mom attended UNC and it’s always been a dream of Bree’s to go, though her mom didn’t like that idea for reasons unbeknownst to Bree.

During their first night on campus, Bree and Alice find themselves at the traditional (and illegal) first-year student cliff-jumping at Eno Quarry. At the quarry, things take a turn for the magical and frightening. After witnessing a little too much, Bree runs away and is arrested along with Alice who takes them back to campus. The next morning, the dean’s office summons them both and they are assigned peer mentors, second-year Early College Program students who have made better choices. Bree’s peer mentor is Nick Davis. He’s trying to be friendly and walk her back to her dorm when things get weird, magical, and terrifying again. Bree stumbles upon some large, glowing, absolutely frightening creature. It tries to attack but Nick jumps between her and the monster and tells her to run. Bree passes out and wakes up in one of the giant stately homes off campus. Nick brought her there, to their healer.

Nick is part of a secret society and is what is called Legendborn, a direct descendent of King Arthur and his round table. They assume Bree must be one of them, because she saw the hellhound and normal people can’t. Meanwhile, Bree has close to no idea what is going on but everyone else there thinks she knows more than she is letting on. Once Bree knows this little bit, she can’t unknow it. And maybe she has more of a connection than she realizes. So she plans on infiltrating this secret society.

There is so much in this book. Different kinds of magics, lots of monsters, both the human kind and the fantastical, Black girl magic, of course, and tons of fun.

Content warnings: the book immediately starts with our main character’s mother’s death and additional content warnings for lots of racism. This is the first book in a series and the second is due out later this year.

Don’t forget you can get three free audiobooks at Audiobooks.com with a free trial!

Claudia is a twenty-something Chinese American woman living in New York City and trying to duck her family’s weighty expectations. She works for a firm called Veracity, which exists to verify the details listed on dating profiles for their anxious online dating clients. Claudia likes the job because it means she spends as much time out on her bike as she does in an office, and she’s keen on mystery novels even if her boss would be the first to insist they aren’t detectives. But when a client dies under suspicious circumstances, Claudia can’t let it go. Soon, she’s looking into the case on her own time, and what she finds suggests foul play.

Don’t forget you can get three free audiobooks at Audiobooks.com with a free trial!

I loved this mystery because it has a lot of elements I love in a good murder mystery—a smart protagonist, mysterious death, interesting characters, and an intriguing set-up—and it’s not a procedural (I do like a good procedural but I am weary of reading about U.S. police departments). Claudia takes a lot of her inspiration from mystery novels and her favorite is a series starring Inspector Yuan, whom she invokes a lot in her investigation. She’s savvy and smart, but she’s definitely an amateur and that shows in the missteps she makes…but rather than detract from the mystery, it endeared her to me and lead to some interesting revelations and twists. The mystery itself is an interesting exploration of the tech world and journalism, which made the book feel very modern and relevant, and I liked how the investigation plot was balanced with subplots involving Claudia’s relationship with her siblings and mom, and a mini mystery her older sister was facing. Claudia is also queer, and while this book doesn’t have any romance in it, her queer identity is an important part of the story. This mystery is resolved by the end, but the author cleverly sets up a sequel—and hints at a surprising potential love interest for Claudia!—which I can’t wait to read! Definitely read this book if you enjoy the Vera Kelly mysteries by Rosalie Knecht, as they have similar sensibilities despite the 50-odd year difference in setting!

Happy reading!
Tirzah

A few years ago, I came across the “Growing Up” series from Black Inc books. This series of anthologies features essays from different minority communities around Australia, including Growing Up Asian in Australia, Growing Up African in Australia, Growing Up Queer in Australia, and Growing Up Aboriginal Australia. All of these anthologies are wonderful, but today, I wanted to share my favorite.

Edited by disability rights advocate Carly Findlay, Growing Up Disabled in Australia features disabled writers from across the continent with different kinds of disabilities. The word “disability” is an umbrella term that covers so many conditions and ways of being disabled, so I loved seeing the wide range of representation. Plus, experiences differ depending on the quality of care you receive in your particular country. I really appreciated learning more about how different people with the same condition can have completely different experiences based on their circumstances.

Findlay does a great job of encouraging the writers to tell their own stories. An autistic person writes about how they attended a play about an autistic girl. They really didn’t like the play, but when they talked to the play’s creators, they realized that they were approaching autism from a different perspective. This conversation reminded them that different people with the same condition can have very different opinions. 

There are special olympians, artists, and creators of all sorts in this collection. A woman with intellectual disabilities shares how the adults around her only seemed to tell her everything she couldn’t do. But she didn’t let that stop her from pushing herself to do the things she loves, like writing her own book.

Anthologies like Growing Up Disabled in Australia remind me of how vibrant, creative, and resourceful disabled people are. So much of our lives are spent fighting for our place in the world, for our very right to exist. But given a chance, we can do incredible things.

Full disclosure: I have not read the original novel by Gabby Rivera but this graphic novel is incredibly good. It starts with a letter from our heroin, Juliet Milagros Palante to Harlowe Brisbane, the author of Raging Flower, a feminist book that Juliet is reading. In the letter, Juliet interrogates the author’s white feminism and asks if there is a place for her, a queer Puerto Rican teen from the Bronx. She hears that Harlowe is working on writing another book and offers her services as an intern to help inject more melanin into the content.

Three months later Juliet will be heading to Portland, Oregon to be Harlowe’s intern. But before she gets on the plane she is determined to come out to her family. They don’t know she’s a lesbian. Well, her little brother Melvin does. Juliet’s family doesn’t take her coming out very well and she heads off to Portland on a sour note. Juliet has a girlfriend, Lainie, who she is head over heels for but to an outsider Lainie just looks like a whole field full of red flags. Juliet gets to Portland and is starstruck by Harlowe. We quickly learn that Harlowe might be a bit too head-in-the-clouds-and-the-clouds-are-in-fairyland and also she is a mess. Again, lots of red flags here.

This story has so many layers. Yes, it’s about Juliet coming into her own but it’s also a story about queer people of color doing all kinds of groundwork and then a white queer woman taking the credit. It’s such an accurate portrayal of a queer white woman feeling guilty because she has privilege but then somehow making that the problem of the people of color in the queer community. It’s also a beautiful portrayal of the importance of queer people of color being in community with other queer people of color. This book is a story about Juliet finding her people and it’s amazing and beautiful and heartbreaking and really, really important.

The lives of everyone in the small, prosperous kingdom of Lumatere are forever disrupted one fateful night when the king and his family are overthrown and murdered, and his young son disappears, presumed dead. Finnikin was a child when this happened, and a curse fell upon the kingdom, exiling half the kingdom outside of Lumatere’s walls. Finnikin has grown up with the former king’s advisor, traveling the lands trying to improve life for the exiles but he’s long given up hope that he’ll ever be able to return home…until a young novice who has taken a vow of silence communicates to him that if Finnikin can find his father, the imprisoned King’s Guard, and unite the exiles, she can produce the missing heir and bring Lumatere’s people home. Finnikin wants to believe her, but she seems to be hiding an impossible secret.

It’s no exaggeration to say that this is one of my favorite books of all time. When it comes to fantasy, I require a few things: excellent writing, great world building, incredible characters, and a fantastic plot—preferably one that explores big topics that are relatable in the real world. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m picky, but books like this are why I love this genre. Marchetta creates magic on the page, and I love how she explores the idea of displacement and what it means to belong, and how to process a collective trauma. Now, be warned—it is a slow build at the beginning as the characters are set up and the conflict is established. If you give it 50 pages, I promise you’ll be hooked by the incredible storytelling elements as Finnikin and his small band of exiles begin the arduous process of rescuing their people, uniting them, and then finding the bravery to face unbearable pain and suffering in order to take back their home. There are a few surprises along the way, although savvy readers might be able to see a few plot developments coming. But the ending? Totally worth it.

The first book has a complete arc, which is really satisfying in this world of fantasy cliffhangers and ongoing series, but if you love this book I highly recommend checking out Froi of the Exiles and Quintana of Charyn, the second and third books in the trilogy. Just be warned…if you pick up Froi, you’ll want Quintana on hand because Froi ends on a cliffhanger!

KC Davis is a therapist who has a really popular TikTok account, @DomesticBlisters. A lot of her content is about cleaning. I’m not talking about vacuuming your mattress every night or labeling everything you own or organizing all your belongings in Roy G Biv order. I’m talking about the chores, or as Davis calls them, the care tasks, that seem like they’re simple for other people but when you have depression, ADHD, physical disabilities, chronic pain, trauma, lack of support etc. even the thought of doing these things can be overwhelming and fill you with deep shame when you can’t bring yourself to do them. It could be folding laundry, doing laundry at all, changing your sheets, brushing your teeth, washing dishes, or something else. If you are a person who does all of these things regularly and without issue, then this book is probably not for you. But if you, like me, have ever sat on your kitchen floor and cried at the prospect of doing a mountain of dishes, then I think you will get something out of this book.

The center of this book is this: You do not work for your home; your home works for you. KC Davis offers a helpful perspective on ways to make your home work for you. This book isn’t all tips and tricks (though honestly, why do baby onesies need to be folded?). The author wants to help put a stop to the shame that builds up over care tasks and not having the capacity to do them. She tells readers over and over that we are not bad people if we have a messy home. We still deserve things like love and rest and fun even if the laundry isn’t done.

This book is big on self-compassion and practicality. It stresses the importance of care tasks as kindnesses to yourself, sometimes your present self, sometimes your future self, like how washing the coffee pot tonight is a kindness to your morning self so you have a clean pot to make coffee in. If you’re into different tidying methods or cleaning shortcuts, there are definitely some of those offered in this book as well.

Charlie Hall is in her late twenties, and she’s spent most of her life as a thief and con artist in a world where people can manipulate their own shadows for power and status. But not anymore—after a job went wrong, she’s decided she’s on the straight and narrow path, working as a bartender and trying to see her sister through college. But then one last job reels her back into her former life, and this time she walks right into the center of a dangerous struggle for a legendary grimoire that a local billionaire is desperate to get his hands on. And unfortunately for Charlie, it turns out this mess is about to get personal, so there’s no walking away from it.

If you’re a devoted Holly Black reader, this novel (with a confirmed sequel!) is probably best described as an edgier, slightly more grown up novel that’s reminiscent of her Curseworkers series—it’s got an organized crime element, family secrets, heists, dangerous magic, and plenty of plot twists. If you’re new to Holly Black, hopefully that all sounds good to you! I really enjoyed Charlie, a character who’s never really gotten a fair start in life and grew up manipulated into conning more powerful shadow magic users in order to get ahead. We meet her at a point in her life when she’s realized the danger in her previous actions, and is trying to live a different life—but it’s incredibly hard when the world seems to be against you. You can’t help but sympathize with Charlie for her rather simple desire for a job that pays the bills, a boyfriend who is steady and kind, and a sister who is happy with going to college. Of course, nothing is that simple and Charlie realizes she’s going to have to face the darkness head on if she’s going to even survive.

I’ll be real—I didn’t 100% understand the magic system in this world, and there were many scenes where I just went with it. Luckily, Black makes it easy to do because her writing and her characters are so engaging, and I think it’s the more grounded, real-world struggles of trying to live a good life in a complicated and not-so-kind world that made the conflict so intriguing. And of course, there are some truly excellent twists in this story (some I saw coming, others I didn’t) and a brilliant heist climax that made my head spin (in a good way!), and all of that was really fun. This book is one of my favorites of Black’s work, and it’s perfect for fans of Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo!

In the introduction, the author asks, “Where are all the stories about little swarthy-skinned robber trans girls waving tiny knives made of bone? About trans teenage witches with golden eyes who cut out their own hearts and lock them in boxes so that awful guys on the internet will never break them again? About trans girls who lost their father in the war and their mother to disease, and who go forth to find where Death lives and make him give them back?” This novel is a reply to these questions. Not only a reply, but a scream, a yell, and a song.

The protagonist is an older teen, Asian trans girl who runs away from a city called Gloom. She leaves her parents, who have expectations of her to not be trans and to go to university, among other things. She also leaves her little sister Charity to whom she writes letters that are scattered through this book. Our protagonist is a kung-fu expert and she has a companion who is a ghost. One more thing: our protagonist is a pathological liar.

Upon her arrival to the City of Smoke & Lights, she is found by Kimaya, a fierce femme who takes in all the trans girls seeking love, community, safety, and home. The epicenter of the city where the fiercest femmes can be found is called the Street of Miracles. The Street of Miracles has its own history/mythology and it keeps the inhabitants safe. We meet more fierce femmes as well. Kimaya runs the Femme Alliance Building, known as FAB, which is a health and social services center for trans women and sex workers.

At one point, one of their group gets murdered. A number of them then form the Lipstick Lacerators, a revenge gang who runs around terrorizing and beating the crap out of the men who would see trans women as victims. Remember, our protagonist is a kung-fu expert and things get very violent.

Content warnings for rape and molestation, transphobic hate speech, violence including murder of trans women, and self-harm.