Representation within fiction has been a huge passion of mine for as long as I've been active as a reviewer. No form of representation has had the same personal significance to me, as that of disabled, (chronically) ill or divergent bodies. Growing up, illness and disability were always a big part of my life, and I've spoken about how it shaped my relationship with reading as well. My love of reading started in hospital-beds, escaping the reality of my own "stroke of bad genetic luck": a rare form of cancer as a child, the life-long chronic health-detriments that came with ánd a completely separate progressive genetic connective-tissue-disease. I read together with my mum, who was also wheelchair-bound for as long as I can remember, and we were always on the hunt for books where we could see those parts of ourselves reflected on the pages. Unfortunately, growing up, those books were few and far between. Over the years however, I've gathered quite the collection of gems that I would love to share with anyone on a similar journey. This list has been a labour of love that has been years in the making, and has since grown into a beast of extraordinary substance, featuring over 100 titles and counting.
Each person’s experience with (chronic) illness or disability is unique, so every reader will be seeking something different in their fiction. I’ve attempted to cluster them according to the little menu below, for ease of navigation.
I also have a separate section on fiction that focusses on the perspective of caregiving for someone with a disability/illness, as well as a section that deals specifically with mental health.
This list in total encompasses over 100 titles, so my descriptions will be brief. All books are linked to their respective Goodreads-page where you can read more about them.
Personal Favourites (top 5)
- Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies – Maddie Mortimer Genre: literary fiction Representation: cancer (protagonist)
One line synopsis: Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies is the lyrical tale of a woman, her body and the illness that coinhabits it. Told from the perspectives of Lia herself, her daughter Iris and the (callous? Cynical? Caring…?) voice of the disease itself, we follow her life after a diagnosis of terminal cancer. A coming of age story, at the end of a life.
What it meant to me: As a cancer-survivor myself, and having lost a parental figure to cancer, I can confidently say that this is my personal favourite book on the topic out there. Holding the middle between prose and poetry, this stunning novel's triple perspective of mother, daughter and the disembodied voice of "cancer itself" worked its way under my skin and straight to my heart. Apart from the quality of the book itself, I will never forget the timing of first reading this book: during my first weeks of working as an MD in Oncology. This book was the ceremonial bow that tied that circle of my life closed.
- Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro Genre: literary fiction
One line synopsis: A dystopian classic about three friends growing up in an exclusive boarding school secluded in the English countryside. As any child would, they accept the comings and goings at the grounds as just another part of normal life. It isn't until later, looking back as adults, that the three friends realize the full truth of what Hailsham is.
What it meant to me: there's no way to talk about this book's personal meaning without spoiling plotpoints. Yet even if you know the "twist", you might be wondering why I related it to my experience with illness and disability so much. In vague and spoiler-free terms: Never Let me Go was the first and most powerful book to resonate with me on a feeling of realising your own mortality, and moving forwards with that notion. The characters in this book live with an expiration-date, unshakingly and unfairly present since childhood. They live in a perpetual cycle of loss, marching towards an inevitable end. And yet they live and love every miniscule moment to its fullest. These characters, this story and the line "We all complete. Maybe none of us really understand what we've lived through, or feel we've had enough time.” have been forever tattooed on my soul since I read this book, as the ultimate description of what it's like to know your life has an expiration-date to it.
- This Appearing House - Ally Malinenko Genre: middle grade horror
One line synopsis: Shortly before the five-year anniversary of her cancer diagnosis, 12-year old Jac discovers a house at the dead end of her street that wasn't there before. As she enters and explores the house, joined by her best friend, she soon begins to suspect that it wasn't a coincidence that the house showed up where and when it did. Instead: it has a haunting message specifically for her...
What it meant to me: Books about childhood cancer are rare, let alone books that portray a child surviving cancer, without being paraded around as an inspirational hero for others to gawk at. As someone who's experienced childhood cancer and the lingering uncertainty that follows a "NED"-verdict, I wish this book had been around when I needed it. Even retrospectively though, I can say this book helped me feel seen in the metaphorical haunting that cancer brought to my childhood.
- When Breath Becomes Air - Paul Kalanithi Genre: memoir
One line synopsis: At the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade's worth of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, and the next he was a patient struggling to live. In his memoir, Kalanithi documents his experiences with the medical field, "from both sides", as well as tackeling the large questions of what really matters in the end.
What it meant to me: there are a million "cancer-memoirs" out there, yet this one remains my favourite to date. Not only is Kalanithi a brilliant man and a talented writer, he also offers a perspective that I personally relate to, if "in reverse". Kalanithi and I both saw the medical field both from the perspective of the doctor, as well as the patient. Where Kalanithi went from "naieve medical student" (his words, not mine) to terminal patient, I became a doctor after my own close-call with death due to cancer. This strange mirror makes, combined with Kalanithi's eloquent descriptions of universal experiences for every doctor ánd patient, make this an extra powerful memoir that I will treasure forever.
Genre: memoir
One line synopsis: A memoir-in-essays from Rebekah Taussig, who grew up paralyzed due to childhood illness, that chronicles her time from a disabled kid during the 90's to disabled motherhood currently.
What it meant to me: this book resonated with me on multiple levels. Not only from the point of view of someone with a disability myself, but also the child of a full-time wheelchair-using mother. Rebekkah Taussig's writing, both in this book and on her social media @sitting_pretty resonate with me in a particularly powerful way. Specifically her writing about life as a disabled mother always make me feel a little closer to my own mother as well.
- Annihilation - Jeff Vandermeer Genre: sci-fi horror
One line synopsis: Area X has been cut off from the rest of the world for decades. Nature has reclaimed the last vestiges of human civilization. The first expedition returned with reports of a pristine, Edenic landscape; the second expedition ended in mass suicide, the third in a hail of gunfire as its members turned on one another. The members of the eleventh expedition returned as shadows of their former selves, and within weeks, all had died of cancer. In Annihilation, the first volume of Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach Trilogy, we join the twelfth expedition...
What it meant to me: I fully realise this book is an odd duck in the bunch. Annihilation has nothing to do with disability or illness. And yet it (unintentionally?) did something for me that no other book ever did before or after. Although I usually focus on the more positive side of things, my personal experiences with cancer were everything but that. Most of my childhood memories of that time live in an inchoate, almost liminal space of dread, fear and horror that defies words. No piece of fiction has ever come closer to depicting that wordless terror than Annihilation. This includes both the book as well as the movie-adaptation, which is quite different but happens to lean even more into a cancer-metaphor.
I can't guarantee anyone will have the same experience with this book that I had, and I don't even think the author intended for any of this. That doesn't take away from my personal love for what this book did for me: reading this (over and over) was a katharsis unlike any other. Sometimes we need fiction to tell the truth that we cannot voice otherwise...
Adult Fiction
- Where the Forest Meets the Stars – Glendy Vanderah Genre: literary fiction/contemporary Representation: cancer (protagonist)
One line synopsis: A heartwarming but not sappy story of a young woman slowly finding her way back to life, friendship, love and her job as an ornithologist in training, after the subsequent losses of her mother and her own health to breast-cancer. Strengths: reads like a "lighter" contemporary novel, whilst still honouring the depths of its subjectmatter. Features representation of both physical illness (cancer) and mental health (depression) Weaknesses: I'm not a fan of the trope of overcoming grief or trauma through a new relationship. Although the relationship here is well-realised, it leans close to that trope.
- Elena Knows – Claudia Pineiro Genre: mystery Representation: Parkinson’s disease, dementia (protagonist) One line synopsis: a desperate mothers search for answers regarding the death is complicated by her own faltering health. We follow what would for many people be an ordinary track through the streets of Buenoz Aires, but is an exhausting Odyssey fueled by the determination of a woman navigating the world with the effects of Parkinsons Disease.
Strengths: unique narrative, told largely through crip-time
- The Unseen World – Liz Moore Genre: literary fiction/contemporary Representation: Alzheimers disease (father of protagonist)
One Line synopsis: years after his passing, a young woman uncovers answers and grieves about a side of the life of her eccentric late father, who she never fully got to know.
Strengths: a very moving portrayal of the effects of dementia on both the person suffering from it themselves, as well as their family. The novel has plenty to offer outside of a story about illness and is worth a read even if you're not in it for the representation.
Genre: literary fiction/contemporary Representation: Life-threatening anaphylaxis (daughter of protagonist)
One line synopsis: A family’s life is completely upended by the sudden realization of their daughters mortality, following an unexplained life-threatening case of anaphylaxis. Each family member finds their own way with- or around this newfound uncertainty.
Strenghts: this is a stunning portrait of what the realization of your health no longer being a guarantee can do to a person and their surroundings. A perspective we don't see covered in this much depth too often.
Genre: literary/contemporary fiction
Representation: dementia (father of protagonist)
One-line synopsis: A lost young woman returns to small-town New Hampshire under the strange circumstances of her elderly dad hallucinating ghost(-animals) in his house. What follows is one-of-a-kind, tragi-comic novel of life, death, and whatever comes after.
Strenghts: manages to find a relatable humor in situations that might be harrowing otherwise, whilst not making light of them.
- Shark Heart - Emily Habeck Genre: magical realism
Representations: degenerative illness
One-line synopsis: a heartfelt tale of a couple chronicalling the year after the husband's diagnosis with a strange affliction; one that will gradually turn him into a great white shark.
Strenghts: uses a metaphorical/magical-realist illness that turns people into animals as a striking metaphor for neurodegenerative illness. Covers various perspectives, inside and around the sickbed. Manages to be a love-story (not a romance!) through-and-through.
Weaknesses: the fantasy-illness and the (sometimes mixed) metaphors that come with it are sometimes a little silly and distract from the powerful messages it attempts to convey.
Genre: literary fiction
Representation: wheelchair use, paralysis (protagonist)
One line synopsis: 3 strangers in a rural Oregon town, each working through grief and life's curveballs, are brought together by happenstance on a local honeybee farm where they find surprising friendship, healing--and maybe even a second chance--just when they least expect it.
Genre: literary fiction
Representation: ICU-stay after aortic dissection
One line synopsis: A poet's life is turned inside out by a sudden, wrenching pain. The pain brings him to his knees, and eventually to the ICU. Confined to bed, plunged into the dysfunctional American healthcare system, he struggles to understand what is happening to his body, as someone who has lived for many years in his mind.
- Lean Fall Stand – John McGregor Genre: literary fiction Representation: stroke, aphasia
One line synopsis: a (medical) emergency on a remote Antarctic expedition has farstretching consequences, reaching beyond immediate survival, and into the return home.
Genre: literary fiction/contemporary Representation: (long)COVID-like illness, caretaking
One line synopsis: Told in dual timelines, a 59-year old artist reflects on her life and imminent death, both of which have been marked by the pandemic she survived in her twenties.
Strengths: resonated with my personal experiences during the 2020-pandemic. Strong character portrait of its protagonist.
Content warning: explicit sexual content
Genre: contemporary fiction
Representation: chronic pain after car-accident
One line synopsis: two friends—often in love, but never lovers—come together as creative partners in the world of video game design, where success brings them fame, joy, tragedy, duplicity, and, ultimately, a kind of immortality.
Strengths: covers various stages of grief after becoming disabled, as well as working through internalized ableism and racism.
Weaknesses: large focus on "how sad the disabled man's life is", that at times goes a little beyond the characters grief and into the territory of the author feeling sorry for him. This might just be my interpretation though, as I have spoken to other disabled readers who didn't feel this at all.
Aside from the disability-representation though, I disliked almost anything else about the book, so it's not one I can recommend based off my own experiences regardless. There's a dedicated review, if you want to know why.
Genre: contemporary romance
Representation: limb-differences, amputee (protagonist / love-interest)
One line synopsis: two people, each suffering from a disablity based in limb-difference develop a friendship (and maybe more) after the fallout of a one-night-stands connects them longer than they were planning on.
Strengths: even as a fervent romance-hater, I really enjoyed this one, tropes and all... Beautiful focus on selfreliance and independence, and not using the characters disabilities as a way to shoehorn in a "saviour-complex-romance".
Weaknesses: "accidental-pregnancy-trope".
- Our Hideous Progeny - C.E. McGill Genre: historical fiction, Frankenstein retelling Represenation: unspecified chronic illness, likely post-viral, although not recognized in historical setting. (side-character) One line synopsis: a feminist continuation of the classic story of Frankenstein, in which his great niece continues her great uncles experiments all on her own, to gain footing in the elite and male-dominated world of academia.
Strengths: a novel where chronic illness is far from the focus, but chronically ill characters just exist on page. Strong portrayal of the historical views of an unrecognized chronic illness, including the misogynist views that came with it.
Genre: historical fiction, horror
Representation: tuberculosis, bodily differences in general (spoilers), medical misogyny.
One line synopsis: following the events at a Sanatorium in the Polish forest in 1913, where men come to undergo a "nature-cure" from their tuberculosis. Watched from the forest by a chorus of female ghosts, we watch their misogynistic views escalate, as well as the strange events around the Sanatorium.
Strengths: extremely historically aware, nuanced and intersectional. Withholds certain information about a characters health-status, but doesn't use it for shock-value in a later reveal.
Content warning: every single character on page is (intentionally!) misogynist and ableist. Critique of these views is strongly implied, but the blatantly ignorant and misinformed opinions expressed by characters can still be triggering to some, specifically when it comes to intersex and/or non-binary individuals.
- Never the Wind – Francesco Dimitri Genre: fantasy Representation: blind main character (retinitis picmentosa)
One line synopsis: a gothic fantasy of family, friendship, memory, and the uncanny told from the perspective of a blind teenager.
Strengths: the first book I've read to capture such a rich portrait of the world through a blind characters eyes, and the way that impacts the way they interpret it.
- The Gracekeepers & The Gloaming – Kirsty Logan Genre: fantasy Representation: limb-differences/facial disfigurement
One-line synopsis: set in a waterlogged world flooded by the ocean, we follow two protagonists; Callanish who makes a living as a Gracekeeper, administering shoreside burials to the local islanders, and North; a circus performer with floating troupe of acrobats, clowns and dancers who sail from one archipelago to the next, entertaining in exchange for sustenance. A beautiful friendship blossoms when their stories intersect.
Genre: fantasy
Representation: limb-difference, wheelchair use, blindness, various other disabilities.
One-line synopsis: Bound to wheelchairs and dependent on prosthetic limbs, the physically disabled students living in the House are overlooked by the Outsides. Not that it matters to anyone living in the House, a hulking old structure that its residents know is alive.
- Welkom in het Rijk der Zieken – Hannah Bervoets Genre: magical realism Representation: fibromyalgia, chronic Q-fever Written by author with Ehlers Danlos Syndrome
One line synopsis: a man navigates the (metaphorical) spaces of his life with a recently diagnosed chronic condition finds himself in the "Kingdom of the Ill", where he confronts other chronically ill people, and parts of himself he didn't yet know.
Weaknesses: currently available in Dutch only.
Genre: horror Represenation: paralysis, post-partum complications, wheelchair-use. One line synopsis: a new mother, newly wheelchair-bound after a traumatic birth, and her husband move into an exclusive Gothic appartment building and soon find things aren't quite what they expected...
Strengths: one of the rare portrayals of a disabled protagonist in horror who stands her own and isn't used as monster-fodder... It's sad that that's the bar, but here we are...
- All’s Well – Mona Awad Genre: horror, magical realism Representation: chronic pain
One-line synopsis: a former-theatre star now spents her days teaching college-theatre after an accident on stage prevented her from ever working again. As the latest play she's directing for her students (All’s Well That Ends Well) progresses, the combination of her mutanous students and her increasing relience on painmedication, begins to blur the edges between real and theatrical. Weaknesses: Although I personally enjoyed this novel, it’s a bit of a marmite one. There’s the “magical healing trope” (although subverted), representation of medical gaslighting and body-horror element that can be triggering to some readers. The protagonist is also very unlikable, which can be misinterpreted as being “because of her chronic pain”, although I’m fairly sure that isn’t the intended message.
Genre: short-stories, magical realism
Representation: limb-differences/disfigurement. Own-voices
One-line synopsis: a collection of twelve haunting stories; modern fairy tales brimming with magic, outsiders and lost souls.
Strengths: dreamlike fairytales for adults that allow for multiple interpretations. There's a focus on "otherment"; both its beauty and its loneliness, rather than any specific disability. Because of that, I feel it can resonate with anyone who's experienced that feeling, whether due to physical differences, or anything else.
- Please Do Not Touch This Exhibit - Jen Campbell Genre: poetry magical realism Representation: limb-differences/disfigurement. EDSS1 syndrome, Own-voices.
One-line synopsis: poems exploring disability, storytelling, and the process of mythologising trauma. Jen Campbell writes of Victorian circus and folklore, deep seas and dark forests, discussing her own relationship with hospitals — both as a disabled person, and as an adult reflecting on childhood while going through IVF.
Genre: short stories, magical realism Representation: abstract depiction of bodily difference, written by an author with cerebral palsy.
One-line synopsis: A collection of short stories, each a tentatively tender, yet subtly dark exploration of Otherness in all its monstrous beauty. A lovesong to the Monstrous and living life on the margin, with a slight dissonant note to it; exactly the way I love it.
Non-Fiction
- Sitting Pretty – Rebekkah Taussig Genre: memoir Representation: paralysis due to childhood cancer, wheelchair use. Parenthood as a wheelchair-user.
Genre: memoir
Representation: Chronic Illness, Acute Leukemia
Genre: memoir
Representation: Crouzon syndrome, facial disfigurement
Genre: memoir in vignets
Representation: acute encephalitis, chronic illness
Genre: memoir combined with nature-writing
Representation: Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, Hemochromatosis.
Genre: memoir Representation: colon cancer (terminal)
- When Breath Becomes Air – Paul Kalanithi Genre: memoir Representation: lung cancer (terminal)
- The Emperor of all Maladies - Siddhartha Mukherjee Genre: medical non-fiction Representation: an academic history of cancer and cancer-medicine
- The Bright Hour – Nina Riggs Genre: memoir Representation: breast-cancer (terminal)
Genre: non-fiction, natural biology Representation: vision-loss
Genre: memoir
Representations: cancer-survivorship. The author chronicles her journey with leukemia, as well as having to "restart" her life after the events.
- The Salt Path – Raynor Winn Genre: memoir Representation: Cortico-Basal Degeneration (partner of author)
Genre: memoir combined with academic essays on archeology
Representation: undiagnosed terminal neurodegenerative illness (partner of author)
- Memento Mori - Tiitu Takalo Genre: graphical memoir Representation: subarachnoid hemorrage
Young Adult fiction
- Breathe and Count Back from Ten - Natalia Sylvester Genre: contemporary Representation: hip-dysplasia, chronic pain own-voices
One-line synopsis: Verónica, a Peruvian-American teen with hip dysplasia, auditions to become a mermaid at a Central Florida theme park in the summer before her senior year, all while figuring out her first real boyfriend and how to feel safe in her own body.
- One Word Kill – Mark Lawrence Genre: fantasy/sci-fi Representation: cancer
One-line synopsis: a short sci-fi whirlwind about Dungeons and Dragons, childhood cancer, friendship, time travel and so much more, all wrapped up in a neat 200 pages.
Genre: magical realism
Representation: various chronic illnesses, own-voices
One-line synopsis: Teen Wolf meets Emergency Contact in this sharply observed, hilarious, and heartwarming debut young adult novel about friendship, chronic illness, and . . . werewolves.
- Magonia – Maria Dahvana Headley Genre: fantasy Representation: unnamed pulmonary illness
One-line synopsis: Since she was a baby, Aza Ray Boyle has suffered from a mysterious lung disease that makes it ever harder for her to breathe, to speak—to live. So when Aza catches a glimpse of a ship in the sky, her family chalks it up to a cruel side effect of her medication. But Aza doesn’t think this is a hallucination. She can hear someone on the ship calling her name.
- Where Do You See Yourself – Claire Forrest Genre: contemporary Representation: cerebral palsy + college life in wheelchair One-line synopsis: an unforgettable coming-of-age tale, a swoon-worthy romance, and much-needed disability representation in this story about a girl who's determined to follow her dreams.
- Six of Crows & Crooked Kingdom - Leigh Bardugo Genre: fantasy Representation: chronic pain, main character walks with cane
One-line synopsis: A ragtag crew of outcast teens sets off to pull off an impossible heist against the backdrop of a dark fantasy inspired version of the Amsterdam Cannals.
- The Diviners - Libba Bray Genre: historical fantasy Representation: post-polio paralysis
One-line synopsis: after small town girl Evie O'Neill is shipped off to her uncle in New York following a scandal surrounding her unnatural gift of reading objects, she finds herself wrapped up in a supernatural crisis bigger than she imagined. Luckily, she soon finds support in a handful of fellow New Yorkers, each outcasts, each with unique talents of their own.
- Cursed - Karol Ruth Silverstein Genre: contemporary Representation: Juvenile arthritis
One-line synopsis: 14 year old "Ricky" Bloom, is newly diagnosed with a painful chronic illness and pretty pissed off about it. Her body hurts constantly, her family’s a mess and the boy she’s crushing on seems completely clueless. She knows nothing better than rebel at school. But when her truancy is discovered she must struggle to catch up in school to avoid a far worse horror: repeating ninth grade.
- Drömfrangil - Cynthia McDonald Genre: fantasy Representation: main character is an amputee
One-line synopsis: Though he doesn't know it, Marcus Talent is special. Unfortunately for Marcus, he discovers this unexpectedly when he wakes up in an unfamiliar forest, has his prosthetic arm eaten by a horrifying monster, and then wakes up in his own bed, terrified and bleeding.
Middle-Grade and Childrens Fiction
- A Monster Calls – Patrick Ness
Genre: magical realism
Representation: cancer (mother of protagonist)
- How To Disappear Completely – Ali Standish
Genre: contemporary
Representation: vitiligo (protagonist)
- This Appearing House - Ally Malinenko
Genre: contemporary
Representation: childhood cancer (protagonist is a survivor)
- Song for a Whale – Lynne Kelly
Genre: contemporary
Representation: deaf protagonist
- The Island at the End of Everything - Kiran Millwood Hargrave
Genre: historical fiction
Representation: leprosy
- Julia and the Shark – Kiran Millwood Hargrave & Tom de Freston
Genre: illustrated middle-grade contemporary
Representation: bipolar disorder (mother of protagonist)
- The In-Between – Rebecca Ansari Genre: fantasy Representation: type I Diabetes (sister of protagonist)
- The Hour of Bees - Lindsay Eagar
Genre: magical realism
Representation: Alzheimers (grandfather of protagonist)
- The Distance Between Me and the Cherry Tree – Paola Peretti Genre: contemporary Representation: Stargardts Disease, loss of vision Own-voices
- The Secret of Haven Point - Lisette Auton Genre: fantasy Representation: various disabilies (including audio-visual impairments, wheelchair use, facial disfigurement and agoraphobia)
Own-voices
- The Girl from Earth's End - Tara Dairman
Genre: fantasy
Representation: wheelchair use, parent with terminal illness
- What Stars are Made of – Sarah Allen
Genre: contemporary
Representation: Turner Syndrome
Own-voice
- Kleine Sofie en Lange Wapper - Els Pelgrom (translated as Little Sophie and Lanky Flop) Genre: magical realism Representation: cancer
- Not Quite A Ghost - Anne Ursu Genre: contemporary, horror Representation: post-inflammatory illness, mentions of Long COVID
Books i Recommend AGAINST
- The Fault in Our Stars – John Greene Genre: young adult romance Representation: cancer (both protagonists), not own-voice Recommended against for: romanticizing cancer
- Lump - Nathan Whitlock Genre: literary fiction Representation: cancer, not own-voice
Recommended against for: inappropriate humor at the expense of woman with cancer.
- A Little Heart - Vladarg Delsat Genre: middle-grade Representation: heart-failure, wheelchair use, not own-voice
Recommended against for: portraying a disabled teen as feeble, miserable and a burden to caretakers. Perpetuating the idea that "life with a disability isn't worth it". Magical healing trope.
- Me Before You – Jojo Moyes Genre: contemporary
Representations: caretaking for sick sister, not own-voice
Recommended against for: using the trope of “sick-character being used as object of personal growth for abled-bodies protagonist”.
- Roll With It – Jamie Summer
Genre: middle grade contemporary
Representation: cerebral palsy, wheelchair-use
Recommended against for: being written by a parent of a disabled child, yet containing many harmful stereotypes, ableist language that isn’t always called out, and the strong feeling of “being a burden to your parents” (not called out!) that is very harmful to disabled children in my opinion, especially coming from a parent of one.
- Before I Die – Jenny Downham Genre: Young adult contemporary Representation: terminal cancer (protagonist)
Recommended against for: romanticizing cancer
- Komt een Vrouw bij de Dokter - Kluun (translated as Lovelife) Genre: contemporary Representation: cancer (wife of protagonist)
Recommended against for: romanticizing cancer, excusing cheating on a terminally ill spouse.
- Made You Up – Francesca Zappia
Genre: contemporary romance
Representation: schizophrenia (protagonist)
Recommended against for: romanticizing schizophrenia + being factually inaccurate.
- Stravaganza – Mary Hoffman
Genre: fantasy
Representation: cancer
Recommended against for: trope of “magical healing”
Genre: magical realism
Representation: fictional illness
Note: similar to All’s Well, I enjoyed this novel, but I don’t recommend it as a representation of “illness” or physical disfigurement, but more so as a portrayal of mental differences. I can see how it can be interpreted as offensive to those with intellectual disabilities or physical differences, although I don’t think this was the authors intent.
Unread/On My TBR:
- Moonflower – Kacen Callender Genre: middle grade magical realism Representation: depression (childhood)
Genre: literary fiction/contemporary
Representation: Huntingtons disease
Genre: literary fiction
Representation: chronic fatigue syndrome/ME
- The Moth Girl – Heather Kamins Genre: YA magical realism Representation: fictional illness
- Disability Visibility – edited by Alice Wong Genre: anthology Representation: various disabilities Own Voices
- Say, Say, Say - Lila Savage Genre: contemporary Representation: traumatic brain injury
Genre: middle-grade contemporary
Representation: cancer (brother of protagonist)
- Too Late to Die Young – Harriet McBryde Johnson Genre: memoir/essays Representation: spinal muscular atrophy
See also Caregiving in Fiction: recommendations with a focus on the perspective of taking care of a loved one with chronic illness/disability.
A part three, focussing on mental health specifically, is in the making.
This list is an ongoing work-in-progress, and I'm always on the hunt for more great titles to add to them . If you have any recommendations for books that would foot that bill: feel free to send me a message via my site, my goodreads or my email (fictionfoxreviews@gmail.com).
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