To start, I enjoyed the style of the prose in this book, it had a meandering structure and whimsicality to it that felt very well suited to the intimacy and melancholy of the memoir. Overall I thought it achieved what it set out to do, and the ruminations on "complicated, messy humanity" certainly struck an emotional chord. There were also some beautiful allegories and meta-commentaries on the nature of story telling that sometimes come off as over-indulgent, but in this case I felt that they really worked.

I feel somewhat ambivalent about the mermaid metaphor in the prologue. It's a charming and poignant idea but they way it was executed felt a little clumsy. The writing in the rest of the autobiography however was much more sophisticated, with evocative descriptions of emotion and anger that really hit home. And the mermaid allegory does make a satisfying bookend, as it reappears at the end as well.

The passages discussing the COVID pandemic and its effects on the disabled community, particularly in highlighting the disregard demonstrated by a general public refusing to take necessary precautions that could save lives, were especially impactful. The author offers many keen insights into this time and the trauma and dissonance that followed.

Definitely worth a read, this is an autobiography that opens a door to the authors experiences in a way that is frank and honest: it never shies away from hard truths and brutal realities.

Dreams in Which I’m Almost Human is written in short, lyrical chapters that are easy to follow but carry a lot of depth. From a disability perspective—and especially for someone who works closely with disabled individuals—it really stands out in how it explores bodily autonomy, consent, caregiving, and what it means to move through the world in a wheelchair, including while traveling.

What I appreciated most is how it captures the balance between needing support and maintaining independence, and how thoughtfully it reflects the realities of care—both giving and receiving it. It also weaves in themes like family, nature, storytelling, and even bits of fantasy and poetry in a way that feels very human and grounded.

At its heart, this memoir is about understanding yourself and your place in the world, while also questioning how much language can truly express those experiences. It’s reflective, honest, and especially meaningful for anyone who works in or alongside the disability community.

'Dreams in Which I'm Almost Human' shows the defying moments from Hannah's point of view. Hannah has conquered her disability. She goes through surgeries and treatments. This book is a collection of essays that cover many topics. It's about living with a disability, revealing your true identity, caring for others, fantasy through a mermaid, and other things. This book is a good read for anyone who is living with a disability or knows someone who is living with a disability.

A poignant collections of essays about what it means to live with a disability. Recommended for lovers of memoirs and beautiful, soulful writing.

I found myself highlighting so many quotes from this book to reflect on later, and I read many of the quotes out loud to my partner. This book is so creative and somewhat genre defying, so do not expect it to be a typical linear memoir. I loved that aspect, and it felt fresh to me, as someone who reads a lot of memoirs. Hannah talked about her experiences with such raw emotion and vulnerability that this book surfaced some big feelings in me by reading it. For people who feel frustrated by ableism, especially around the COVID-19 pandemic, reading this book pulls those deep, hurt feelings up from the depths of your heart and brings them into the light. I highly recommend this book.

If you'd like to read this review with the spoilers censored, make sure to view it on Goodreads (@The Reading Frog) or Storygraph (@the_reading_frog).

Thank you to Hannah Soyer, Red Hen Press & NetGalley for this free ARC in exchange for my honest review

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Thank you to Hannah Soyer, Red Hen Press & NetGalley for this free ARC in exchange for my honest review

Rating: 4.5/5 ⭐
A list of uncensored CWs is included at the end of this review.


Representation
I can't list representation as I traditionally would for a fiction book. I will, however, provide a list of groups/themes highlighted in this memoir.
╰┈➤ Queer | Hannah Soyer self-describes as primarily into women and gay. She describes aspects of straight and queer (romantic) dynamics she has experienced.
╰┈➤ Disability | Though primarily focusing on Hannah's lived experience with SMA (Spinal Muscular Atrophy) as well as a spinal fusion in childhood, other disabilities, chronic/pain illnesses, conditions (even undiagnosed ones), dynamic disabilities, and immunocompromised individuals are mentioned/explored as well.
╰┈➤ Mental health | Anxiety, panic attacks, depression, PTSD.
╰┈➤ BIPOC | Intersectional in its approach, the book highlights indigenous and African-American voices, specifically queer, disabled, black artists/writers.


Themes
Disability, chronic illness, chronic pain, (bodily) autonomy/agency or the lack thereof, accessibility, politics in the context of disability, blame shifting/self-advocacy, activism, (toxic/abusive) caretaking, medical consent and why it is dubious, infantilization, intersectionality, (medical) care as a privilege, forced intimacy, COVID/pandemic, (medical) trauma, pain as something subjective/intangible, eugenics, generational trauma, breaking the cycle.


What I liked/loved
‎ ‎ ‎ ✧ This memoir isn't typical in its format. It's genre-bending and includes both recounting/reflection of lived experiences, highlighting of disability discourse/essays, as well as almost folkloric segments featuring mermaids.
‎‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎I would almost call it a blend of fiction and non-fiction, but the mermaid segments could be read as a poetic/artistic embodiment of disabled experiences and thus lie somewhere between these two.
‎ ‎ ‎ ✧ Though I have delved into disability theory/discourse before (even writing my thesis on it years ago), this memoir opened my mind to aspects I hadn't yet fully understood the significance of.
This specific one I might have missed because I'm not a native English speaker. This memoir highlights more than the obvious aspects of ableism in language.
‎‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ Language, specifically figurative speech, is based on able-bodied experiences. Hannah Soyer does a great job highlighting this aspect and questioning how disabled voices can express experiences if there is no language to do so with. Each time she uses a phrase that implies a type of movement not achievable as a wheelchair user, she reminds us of this fact. (Think of sentences like "stumblin' into a room")
‎ ‎ ‎ ✧ Discourse on blame shifting and being forced to learn the skill of self-advocacy. It highlights the intense labour, emotional/physical energy, and effort it takes to access the care one needs to live.

"Instead of changing a broken system, we have to pour time and energy into finding workarounds."

‎ ‎ ‎ ✧ Feminist themes, specifically in the context of care, and how the role of the caregiver has historically almost exclusively been enforced on women.
‎ ‎ ‎ ✧ Lots of exploration of death. Death as a mercy, death as a form of erasure, death as something one is constantly contemplating/confronted with when dealing with a progressive/chronic illness, and death in the context of eugenics.

"We try to make her death mean something. Her being plural, her being subjective, her being, of course, so many people. I’m fourteen years old and there is no pandemic yet, but illness still kills, especially if your life keeps slipping through the cracks of what society has deemed valuable."

‎ ‎ ‎ ✧ Highlights how disability affects mental health, quality of life, and will to live.
‎ ‎ ‎ ✧ Explores trauma as a result of medical procedures and forced intimacy. A concept which I'm glad to now have a term for, since it's something I, too, constantly deal with.

"Consent is a particularly loaded concept in the context of forced intimacy, when there are certain things that disabled people must consent to in order to stay alive."

‎ ‎ ‎ ✧ Discourse on sexuality, intimate/romantic dynamics, and the heartbreaks that come with them, specifically in the context of being disabled.
‎‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ It also highlights desire/fear and how they can become intertwined and hard to identify.

"Fear and desire feel awfully similar, I realize, which is perhaps why it takes me such a long time to understand that my churning stomach and clammy skin before going on dates with men is a side effect of my anxiety around intimacy with men, not butterflies."

‎ ‎ ✧ Although not specifically stated in those words, there is an exploration of comphet and trying to cater to the male gaze as well as chasing the feeling of being wanted.
‎ ‎ ‎ ✧ The impact of COVID on people with disabilities and how it affects access to (medical) care.
‎ ‎ ‎ ✧ Discourse on choice. The lack of it. The questioning of the autonomy of a choice when there are limited or lose-lose type options. The creation of situations, even unsafe/negative/non-beneficial ones, that allow for the opportunity to choose.
‎‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ Having no control over certain aspects of one's life tends to lead someone to try to find that control somewhere else.

"(...) my first year of grappling with the truth that I am drawn to situations in which I am forced to make difficult choices for the sole reason that in these moments, I actually have a say."

‎ ‎ ✧ Discourse on the problematic behaviour of non-black disabled people who equate every ableist thing/situation to racism, with which they erase the existence and experiences of black disabled people.
‎ ‎ ✧ (Chronic) pain, as something subjective and often dismissed, especially when it comes to marginalized bodies. Specifically, black women's pain is undertreated.
‎ ‎ ✧ As someone who has both been visibly and invisibly disabled, this quote really hit me:

"it never looked as terrible as it felt / for this i could never forgive my body"

‎ ‎ ‎ ✧ Highlights how disabled experiences tend to remind able-bodied people of their own mortality and how this is reflected in the treatment of disabled bodies/people.
‎ ‎ ✧ Discourse on the dehumanization of marginalized bodies.
‎ ‎ ✧ Sara Ahmed mentioned!!!!
‎ ‎ ✧ Discourse on childhood (medical)trauma and how it can, and most likely will, affect someone's life and mental health decades later



What I didn't like/felt lackluster about
‎ ‎ ‎ ✦ It was sometimes a bit challenging to read, which might be due to my own inexperience in reading books that combine fiction and non-fiction.
‎‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ Either way, I didn't always fully understand what was going on in the mermaid chapters, but I did enjoy them and felt like I at least partially understood it towards the end.
‎ ‎ ‎ ✦ For me, this one really hit on an extremely personal level as a queer disabled lesbian. I can, however, imagine not everyone feeling as connected to it, since it's a very personal and particular read. I'm unsure of how easily this content is understood and consumed when a reader's own lived experience is far removed from the one portrayed in this memoir.



Conclusion/Notes
This was a hard one to read, probably because it hit a little too close to home.

But god, were the words on these pages demanding to be heard! Regardless of them leaving me with an aching heart, I received them loud and clear. I wouldn't have wanted to miss them.

Truly such an important, personal, and hard-hitting memoir.

A needed read for anyone wanting to learn more about or see themselves reflected on these pages when it comes to agency, (bodily) autonomy, (medical) consent, (medical) trauma, disability/chronic illness/chronic pain, caregivers/care receivers, queerness, and/or otherness.

I'll be thinking about this one for a long time to come.

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Content Warnings
Explicit | Grief, loss of a loved one.
Moderate | Medical procedures, panic attacks, sexual harassment, (emotional) abuse, dissociation, vomit.
Mild | Mention of alcohol use/abuse, death, mention of sa, mention of trump(yes, he gets his own trigger warning), child death, mention of animal death, self-harm, co-dependency, depression, anxiety, mention of ethnic cleansing, suicide, suicidal ideation, softdrugs, racism, ableism, cancer, medical gaslighting.

Dreams in Which I’m Almost Human by Hannah Soyer is one of those books that settles into you slowly, quietly and then all at once. It is a memoir, but it also feels like a meditation. A collection of essays, but also a long conversation with language itself. A book about disability, yes, but also about desire, autonomy, grief, care, storytelling, bodies, feminism, queerness, memory, and the terrifying weight of trying to name what has happened to you.

Thank you so much to NetGalley for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

What struck me almost immediately was the book’s fixation on words. Not just language in the broad sense but words specifically. Their meanings. Their limitations. The way a single term can crack open your understanding of yourself and your past. The memoir repeatedly circles around variations of not knowing the word for something at the time, only to later learn the language for it and I found that incredibly powerful. There is something almost haunting about realizing that some experiences only fully materialize once language catches up to them. Once you finally know the word for something, you cannot unknow it. Suddenly your memories rearrange themselves around it.

I think the memoir understands how language can heal, expose, wound, validate, liberate, and confine all at once. So much of the book feels like an act of retroactive understanding, of trying to name pain, desire, grief, autonomy, and selfhood after the fact. And honestly, I think that is one of the most honest things a memoir can do.

As someone with an invisible disability myself, and also as a queer woman, reading this memoir felt emotionally complicated in a way I still struggle to fully articulate. Our experiences are obviously vastly different but there were moments throughout this book that hit with an almost uncomfortable familiarity. Not necessarily in the specifics but in the emotional architecture of it all. The exhaustion of constantly needing to explain yourself to people who have already decided what your body means before you even speak. The strange loneliness of realizing your body moves through the world differently than other people’s, and that this difference is something others will continuously interpret, question, romanticize, pity, politicize, or misunderstand.

What I especially appreciated was that the memoir never tries to reduce disability into inspiration or tragedy alone. It resists easy narratives and neat resolutions. Instead, it lingers in ambiguity, in messy humanity, in exhaustion and joy existing simultaneously. There are moments of anger here that feel raw and justified, moments of tenderness that made my chest ache, moments that made me physically recoil in discomfort, and moments of humor that caught me completely off guard in the best way possible.

The writing style itself is very straightforward, which I actually think works strongly in the book’s favor. While there is lyricism woven throughout, especially in the imagery and recurring metaphors, the prose never feels inaccessible or overly ornate. It knows when to be poetic and when to simply tell the truth plainly. I appreciated that balance a lot. The memoir’s emotional power often comes not from exaggerated language but from the clarity with which Soyer articulates experiences many people either misunderstand or refuse to see altogether.

And then there are the mermaids.
Without question, my favorite parts of the memoir were the sections involving mermaids and the way the concept is used metaphorically throughout the book. I thought those sections were genuinely masterful. The mermaid becomes so many things at once: disability, queerness, alienation, longing, transformation, survival, spectacle, body horror, beauty, isolation, desire. Sometimes the metaphor feels soft and melancholic. Other times it feels sharp enough to wound.

There is also a deeply political undercurrent running through this memoir, particularly in the essays dealing with the pandemic and institutional failures surrounding disability care. Reading those sections in 2026 felt eerie at times. I am not American, and my knowledge of the intricacies of American politics is admittedly limited, but there was something almost surreal about reading these reflections with hindsight. It felt like reading from inside a moment that did not yet know how history would continue unfolding. There were multiple moments where I found myself internally thinking, oh, if you only knew what was still coming.

Those sections especially made me curious about how the author feels about the current state of the world now, particularly under the current Trump administration and the broader political climate. Reading this memoir made me want to hear even more of her thoughts about society at large.

The sections discussing the women in Soyer’s family were some of the richest emotionally for me. There is such a strong awareness of generational patterns throughout the memoir. Women taking care of others because they have been taught that care is synonymous with worth. Women sacrificing parts of themselves because survival demanded it. Women navigating constrained choices while still trying to carve out tenderness and dignity within those limitations.

I do think there were moments where some transitions (particularly regarding timelines) felt slightly loose or where I wanted clearer grounding temporally. However, it never became distracting enough to significantly lessen my enjoyment. If anything, the fragmented structure often mirrors the memoir’s thematic concerns about memory, embodiment, and identity. The book meanders, but intentionally so. It wanders through thought and association rather than moving in a rigidly linear way.

TL;DR (because I really need to stfu really)
Overall, Dreams in Which I’m Almost Human feels like a book deeply concerned with what it means to exist inside a body while the world continuously attempts to define that body for you. It asks difficult questions without pretending to have neat answers. It explores the unstable boundaries between self and story, flesh and language, survival and autonomy. And through all of that, it remains deeply human.

There is a line of thought that runs quietly underneath the entire memoir: that words are imperfect, but we reach for them anyway. We keep trying to name ourselves, our pain, our desires, our histories, because even imperfect language can still become a bridge toward understanding.

And maybe that is what stayed with me most after finishing this book. The image of someone standing at the edge of language itself, trying over and over again to make meaning from a body and a life the world keeps misunderstanding.

A lyrical collection of essays from author Hannah Soyer about her experiences navigating both childhood and adulthood with her disability, and reflecting on how society can make people feel like an "Other". An important, poignant book. Recommended!

Thank you to the author and publisher for this excellent ARC.

Great emotional stories and a very good read to those who are interested in an awesome memoir.


Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC!!!

If you pick up a disabled read this year, this will be a good pick!

Thank you to NetGalley and Red Hen press for providing me this advance reader copy in an epub format.

Disabled authors make me feel so seen and heard in my inner most deepest thoughts and this one was no exception.

This book doesn’t shy away from real feelings, pandemics and the disabled joys and hardships and I appreciated it so much in a hard spot.

Highly recommend! The voice is amazing and will be a fantastic comfort reread in the future.

4 Stars, thank you to the author, publisher, and Netgalley for this ARC.

This was part memoir, part essays, part reflection on the treatment of disabled people by those more able-bodied during the beginnings of COVID-19, and also part fiction in the mermaid interludes.
I greatly enjoyed the sections with the mermaids and about disability justice/fighting for accessibility. and proper care. Learning about SMA, Spinal-Muscular Atrophy, as well as when the author, Hannah, discovered this was the reason for her body being the way it was, is something I greatly related to with learning about my own chronic illness, hydrocephalus.

This was also a book about language, about desire, autonomy, grief, and being the "other" in so many different ways. I know what it is like to be othered in some ways the author describes, being a disabled queer person, but not in others, like needing people to care for you in several aspects of your life (which I have only experienced in a limited capacity). I greatly enjoyed the personal aspects of this novel, but admittedly, some of the COVID-19 sections were triggering for me as I spent time in the hospital alone having brain surgery during 2020.
Some of the theory portions were also hard to understand, but only because I don't know much, but I will definitely be reading more! I also liked the books and authors that Hannah Soyer mentioned and will be looking into them; I highlighted a lot of this book because it was so relatable.

Soyer's writing is charming and this collection of short essays moves at a comfortable pace that never felt boring.

Something that stood out to me was how acutely a reality of "otherness" is experienced by people whose bodies exist at odds with not just the reigning infrastructure, but with language itself. Multiple times Soyer points out the disingenuousness, the fraud, of having to verbally step in another skin for the simple task of conveying basic emotions:

"I stumbled into the room"
"I fell to my knees"

Factoring in the inability to safely experience those same basic emotions; where a stress induced lack of appetite may very well lead her body to cannibalize her organs, it's easy to see how important it is to find, or at least witness, others with similar lived experiences.

We all want to be recognized and accepted by our own, not for the sake of setting ourselves apart, but for the chance to truly be seen.

Initially, I struggled with this book; memoirs aren't generally my cup of tea, but I found Soyer's prose very intimate and captivating. That being said, if you aren't prepared to question the distinction between "early intervention" and "eradication," hit up your closest friend with a disability so you two can parse out your feelings a bit before you accidentally argue yourself into a eugenics-coded corner.

Dreams in Which I'm Almost Human is a powerful memoir from Hannah Soyer, with a beautifully lyrical writing style and a raw honesty that makes for uncomfortable reading at times. Don't let the idea of that discomfort put you off picking up this book however, this is an important account of the day to day realities of life in a body that does not conform to "normal" standards. Themes of vulnerability, empowerment and consent run throughout the book as the author discusses both the medical decisions and procedures that she has faced, and the obstacles she felt when it came to love and intimacy. A significant proportion of the book highlights the extreme dangers and challenges she faced during the Covid 19 pandemic but other areas explored include the difficulties of travelling while in a wheelchair, the vulnerability of needed round the clock care and the challenges of finding and paying for that care. Throughout the book the author used an allegorical tale involving mermaids, inspired at least in part by the work of Irish Poet Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill, The Fifty Minute Mermaid, and while I found the premise interesting, I felt like it disrupted the flow of the book at times.
This is a book that will resonate with many people living with disabilities, and one that I hope reaches a wider audience as I think it does an excellent job of illustrating the challenges and triumphs that so many able bodied people live their lives in complete ignorance of.
I read an ARC courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher ,all opinions are my own .

Out today - 6/2/2026. Thank you to NetGalley and Red Hen Press for a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review!

I really enjoyed the essays about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, bodily autonomy, choice, forced intimacy and caregiving and queer identity woven throughout. I get the connection with the mermaid metaphor, but those chapters and the dreams didn't fully land for me. I definitely recommend this memoir/essay collection.