This is a fantastic collection of own voices stories about various aspects of living life as an individual who has a disability but without being only defined by that one piece of who you are as a person. I loved this collection. I have a child with developmental disabilities and also am a healthcare worker who runs a medical clinic that sees only the population of developmentally disabled. This book is a great insight into how life is for a variety of people with different disabilities. I greatly appreciate the work involved in putting these stories out into the world and the dignity and respect for each author whose stories were included.
Definitely one of the best anthologies out there.
Thank you for the early copy.
#DisabilityVisibility #KnopfDoubledayPublishingGroup #Vintage #Netgalley

1 in 5 people in the United States live with a disability, either visible or invisible. This is a large segment of our population. The author combines stories from several people with disabilities in this book and highlights the challenges and advantages to living your everyday life with disability. I work with disabled children and found this book to be an interesting read.

Disability Visibility is a collection of essays from Own Voices all the way from activists to everyday people. There are informative essays, heartwarming essays, and truly heartbreaking essays. Separated into four parts - Being, Becoming, Doing, and Connecting each essay reflects on the theme from that part while being deeply personal.

I have Multiple Sclerosis so I'm no stranger to chronic illness but it was really great to read about so many different people and their experiences with not only their specific limitations but also disability as a whole. My biggest take away is how truly inspirational all of these essays are. Each one sparked something in me either by inspiring me to physically do something (many of the people here are writers or artists which I connect with deeply) or by making me rethink things. It's very easy to get stuck in a rut when you're seemingly constantly dealing with new symptoms that derail your life at every turn and seeing different perspectives is a great take away.

A very important addition to this book and one I wish was more normalized is at the beginning of each section there are content warnings. These are so important especially in books like this that are very raw and real because even with them the emotions that the writing evoke are huge.

I think this is really important for everyone to read but able bodied people can especially learn a lot from it to understand just how unseen you can feel if you have a disability. In the Introduction, Editor Alice Wong mentions that this anthology will most likely make you feel uncomfortable and that is something very important to keep in mind. These essays are not meant to be easily digestible and they're meant to make you uncomfortable and make you think.

The Further Reading section at the end is an amazing resource and I'm so glad it was included because I'm always looking for more sources and this breaks it down into categories from non-fiction to poetry and everything in between.

ARC provided by NetGalley and the Publisher

CW: Many, they are noted at the beginning of each essay.

Disability Visibility is an anthology that shares the voices and experiences of 36 people with disabilities. The different perspectives are intersectional, sharing the experiences of BIPOC people, and LGBTQ+ people.

This isn’t a series of inspiring stories about people overcoming their disabilities to achieve their dreams. This is a series of mostly essays the highlight the experiences of disabled people. This book was not what I expected going in, and I think that’s why this book is so important. I learned a lot from reading this, and it really made me think about how to be truly intersectional disability rights need to be centred. This book should be added to everyone’s reading list!

Thank you to Netgalley and Vintage books for the advanced copy.

This diverse collection of essays (from a wonderfully equally diverse group of authors) is fantastic! There is a lot of valuable information here. Additionally, there is a "Further Reading" section at the back of the book with more resources.

No matter how much you know (or think you know) on a subject, there is always more to learn. There are so many varied human experiences, that it's important to seek out and be open to lived experiences of people with different experiences than yours or mine. And seeing your own experiences in writing, and accurately represented, can be empowering.

Also, content warnings are included at the beginning of individual essays. If a subject is triggering for you, you are able to flip past that essay and move on to the next.

Definitely pick up a copy - you won't regret it!

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC! The opinions in this review are honest and my own. #DisabilityVisibility #ownvoices

Thanks to Vintage Books for the free advance copy of this book.

DISABILITY VISIBILITY is a collection of first-person writings about life as a disabled person in the United States today. It includes essays, speeches, blog posts and more and touches on a wide variety of topics, from the difficulty of finding clothing that works to riding public transit to the fight to be seen as fully human.

If you are a non-disabled person looking to learn more about what it's like to move through the world as a disabled person, or if you are a disabled person looking to find yourself on the page, I think this book is the book for you. Each essay brought out a new facet of disabled life, and this book brings special attention to people with multiple marginalizations - disabled and queer, disabled and BIPOC, people with multiple disabilities, and much more.

DISABILITY VISIBILITY is also easy to read - it's not full of academic terms, it's not written with the intent to shut anyone out of the conversation. It's truly a great resource for anyone, something we need much more of when it comes to the stories of disabled people.

Content warnings: Many of the essays have content warnings at the top, and there are a lot of difficult ableism-related things discussed in this book.

A really superlative book. As is true of all anthologies, some of the pieces will resonate more with an individual reader than others. For me, I found almost all of them to be useful and some of them to be extraordinarily powerful. Highly recommedned -- a must read.

Thanks to NetGalley for providing an ARC copy for my review.

This book should be read by everyone. We are so unaware of what people of different abilities go through and make no efforts to make anything easier for anyone. Let us open our hearts and ears to listen and learn. The short stories here allowed the reader to truly access multiple points of view and really educate fully. Highly recommend. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

I feel honored to receive an ARC of this book, I was so excited to get approved for it. There are just not enough writing and published works surrounding and regarding disabled voices and disabled folks. My capstone paper in college was about a similar topic and I had such a hard time finding primary resources that I decided to conduct oral interviews and use them instead. I wish this book had been around then, but I am glad it is here now.

In general, reviewing collections is tough because of the variation and writing styles. Some parts I would rate 3 stars, but the majority of it I would rate a 4 or 5. Overall, this book receives 5 full stars from me. We need more writings, stories, and perspectives from the disabled community, and this collection deserves that rating for that aspect alone. There are content warnings on individuals stories, as well as further reading suggestions at the end.

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for giving me the opportunity to review this.

Disability Visibility edited by Alice Wong is a collection of essays relaying personal experiences of disability and how they are still ignored and treated as less than. I learned so many things about the disabled experience in the United States and was often shocked by how far behind other marginalized groups they are in gaining and enforcing rights. For example, a "1927 Supreme Court case ruled that sterilization of people with disabilities is constitutional." This has still not been overturned and is sometimes even used as an "incentive" toward release from incarceration. Additionally, I learned that while prisons are legally required to provide Deaf prisoners with interpreters for counseling sessions, meetings with their lawyers, and education classes, they often do not.

There are many types of disability represented in this collection from Deafness, blindness, wheelchair users, and the chronically ill. Not only that, but there are several essays focusing on the intersection between disability and of LGBT+ communities and ethnic minorities. Some talk about their struggle to accept the label "disabled" as they were previously able-bodied and still have ingrained ableism. Others talk about how they could do more, if only our society gave more allowances and adaptations to help meet them where they are. A few essays gave examples of how these authors are succeeding because of the creative ways they approach problems.

These essays were not only illuminating to understand the struggles and conditions disabled people have on a daily basis, but I felt seen as a person who has a chronic illness. The majority of the essays either taught me something or made a deep impression on me. Alice Wong writes in the introduction, "Collectively, through our stories, our connections, and our actions, disabled people will continue to confront and transform the status quo." I feel that's exactly what this essay collection does. I gave this book 4 stars and highly recommend to everyone.

This book will be published June 30, 2020. Thank you Netgalley for an advanced copy.

Disability Visibility
First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century
by Alice Wong
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Vintage
Biographies & Memoirs
Pub Date 30 Jun 2020





I am reviewing a copy of Disability Visibility through Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group/ Vintage and Netgalley:






One in five People in the United States live with a disability of one form or another. Some are visible, but there are those that we cannot really see too.






Simply staying alive as a person with a disability in an ableist society can present a challenge. There have been improvements in the last generation, but with a population with up to 20 percent disabled more needs to be done. We live in an era when disabled people are more vibrant and visible than ever before, but that is not enough.







Disability Visibility is a collection of Essays, Blog Posts and Manifestos that Alice Wong has compiled just in time for the thirtieth anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act.



I give Disability Visibility five out of five stars!


Happy Reading!

I found this work to be an incredibly nuanced collection of stories . The authors highlight the diversity of experiences for people with disabilities. The authors share about their own personal experiences and deal with complex topics including race, gender, love, expectations, sexual assault, and accessibility. This book highlights the necessity for society to become accessible, and to stop treating people with disabilities as though they are “brave” for existing, and instead a society wherein all identities advocate for intersectional justice and include disability justice as a crucial part of justice and advocacy work. This book is necessary reading. I received this work as an advanced reader copy and have shared my honest thoughts on the book.

Alice Wong is an amazing advocate in the disabled community. This book was full of great essays from disabled writers and I can’t wait for this to be released. It’s going to be a great resource for getting disabled voices to the public.

I work as an employment specialist for clients with disabilities. This lens has made me deeply aware of the "inspiration porn" the author speaks of in this story. Any time someone with a disability goes viral for a special talent or accomplishment, it is almost always lacking person first language. I liked the realness and the freshness of the essays found in this book. It is educational but also entertaining. I highly recommend.

In a world where the disabled voice is often viewed through the lens of what disability rights activist Stella Young coined as "inspiration porn" or with the rah-rah sympathies of the latest Lifetime Channel movie, a book like "Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century" is an act of revolutionary love and claiming of space.

There is no "Chicken Soup for the Soul" to be found here. In its place, you find #CripLit at its finest - bold and brash, heartfelt and passionate, and incredibly well-informed essays and reflections on the vast diversity of the disability experience as told by a relatively small smattering of the leading disability voices in the 21st century.

Trust me, there are more. Lots more. However, "Disability Visibility" editor Alice Wong has chosen her subjects well in representing the remarkable love and chaos of the disability experience. The writers themselves, representing a broad spectrum of disabilities both visible and invisible, have written with tremendous authenticity, remarkable transparency, and a vulnerability that frequently had me in tears throughout this rewarding collection.

Being released just in time for the 30th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), "Disability Visibility" doesn't mute the harshness of the disability experience. Indeed, many of the essays in the collection begin with content warnings regarding the subject matter about to be discussed - "Disability Visibility" is relentless and fierce in its commitment to an honest portrayal of the disability experience.

It begins with Wong's own introduction to the collection, an introduction birthed out of Wong's own life experiences and her own work with the Disability Visibility Project, a collaboration with StoryCorps, that serves as the framework for this collection.

It would be unjust to describe the essays in "Disability Visibility" with any detail, though some highlights include Harriet McBryde Johnson's riveting and squirm-inducing account of her debate with Princeton University philosopher Peter Singer, an animal rights activist who doesn't possess the same kind of regard for the lives of persons with disabilities. Upcoming authors Keah Brown and Haben Girma share involving original pieces, while some of my own favorites included s.e. smith's essays on crip space, Jamison Hill's poignant and beautiful "Love Means Never Having to Say...Anything," Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha's "Still Dreaming Wild Disability Justice Dreams at the End of the World," the intelligent and angry Harriet Tubman Collective's "Disability Solidarity," Britney Wilson's disturbing essay on NYC's Paratransit program, and Mari Ramsawakh's "Incontinence Is a Public Health Issue And We Need To Talk About It," the latter being an essay that truly connected with pieces of my own disability experience as a 54-year-old writer, creator, and film journalist who is also a paraplegic/double amputee with spina bifida.

There were more essays that I loved, truly loved. There were essays that flew over my head including Jillian Weise's "Common Cyborg." I felt like I wanted to find Wong or Weise on social media and say "Explain this to me, because I have the feeling it's brilliant and I just don't quite get it."

The truth is that I'd be hard-pressed to cite a single weak essay. These essays are revolutionary proclamations of the incredible richness and complexity of the disability experience. While there is much pain and anger within the pages of "Disability Visibility," it is also filled with much love and hope and wonder. As Neil Marcus so beautifully stated "Disability is not a brave struggle or "courage in the face of adversity." Disability is an art. It's an ingenious way to live."

That truth, that disability is an ingenious way to live, is brought to life again and again in this groundbreaking collection of first-person stories from the twenty-first century that challenge and confront, claim space and serve as a literary companion of sorts. There's so many enlightening truths to be explored here, truths that will be easily embraced and understood by those with disabilities and their allies yet truths that also invite readers to challenge their own assumptions and understandings of the disability experience and disability culture.

"Disability Visibility" is a book that illuminates the disability experience with equal parts intelligence and authentic emotional resonance. It's a book that is, at times, difficult to read yet a book that is necessary to read. It's a book I will undoubtedly revisit time and again, yet it's also a book that required I pace myself due to its stark honesty and and the often trauma-tinged stories of individual disability experiences. It's a book that captures it all and for that I am grateful and for that I highly recommend it.

I really enjoyed this book. I had to start off with that because I think it's important to state that I enjoyed this book and would recommend this to everyone. First the author herself is disabled, which is inspiring because there's not many authors that have disabilities. If there are then I definitely need to find out and read their books. She is also an advocate for people who have disabilities and in this book she shares stories of others and what they do to cope with their disabilities. At first I thought it was alot like the Chicken Soup For The Soul books but once I got into it I realized that it's not the case. I give this book five stars i would recommend it and possibly reread again. I thank netgalley and the publishers for letting me read this in exchange for an honest review.