Freeible Fridays #19

Hey Everyone!

As you know, I have been trying this new thing for me where I tell you about a book I loved and share a free ebook link to that book if possible.

When I read about disability, it can be a bit of a hit and miss. It sort of depends on which point of view the author takes. Romancing disability can make it less realistic. From having a disability myself, I know that no disability is rainbows and flowers. I liked Sitting Pretty: The View from My Ordinary Resilient Disabled Body by Rebekah Taussig because it gives you a look into the actual image.

First Lines

Before we talk about anything else, can we just start with awe? I am completely in awe of this moment we’re having right now—you and me. When I was younger, disability didn’t seem to exist outside my visits to the hospital and seating clinics for repairs on my wheelchair. For the most part, I felt really really weird, and not in a cool, MTV’s Daria sort of way. I’d never considered disability an identity worth understanding, let alone celebrating, and I was pretty sure I was the only one who experienced the world from this seat on the margins. But here we are with this little book between us, and my mind is blown, because either (1) you, too, were on the outside and you’re here for stories that give language to that experience, or (2) you weren’t on the outside, but you want to understand what that feels like, and really, either way, the fact that you’re here at all changes everything. Because this right here, you and me, looking at these stories together? This is one of the most beautiful parts of being a human—the drive to connect and understand, heal and blossom. This is the kernel that takes my breath away. The piece I want to hold on to.

Goodreads Blurb:

A memoir-in-essays from disability advocate and creator of the Instagram account @sitting_pretty Rebekah Taussig, processing a lifetime of memories to paint a beautiful, nuanced portrait of a body that looks and moves differently than most.

Growing up as a paralyzed girl during the 90s and early 2000s, Rebekah Taussig only saw disability depicted as something monstrous (The Hunchback of Notre Dame), inspirational (Helen Keller), or angelic (Forrest Gump). None of this felt right; and as she got older, she longed for more stories that allowed disability to be complex and ordinary, uncomfortable and fine, painful and fulfilling.

Writing about the rhythms and textures of what it means to live in a body that doesn’t fit, Rebekah reflects on everything from the complications of kindness and charity, living both independently and dependently, experiencing intimacy, and how the pervasiveness of ableism in our everyday media directly translates to everyday life.

Disability affects all of us, directly or indirectly, at one point or another. By exploring this truth in poignant and lyrical essays, Taussig illustrates the need for more stories and more voices to understand the diversity of humanity. Sitting Pretty challenges us as a society to be patient and vigilant, practical and imaginative, kind and relentless, as we set to work to write an entirely different story.

Goodreads Link Here

Download Link Here

Alex