A young adult novel written by a disabled author.
Where the main character gets into an accident and must use a wheelchair.
(And is written fairly accurately as the author is also in a wheelchair.)
There are more disabled characters than you can count.
The ones who arenāt disabled are the enemies.
It takes place in an alternate version of the 1950s, at an institution for people with disabilities and superabilities.
You see how the disabilities relate to the superabilities (superpowers).Ā
The main character goes through the stages of grief after she realizes that she wonāt be able to walk again but she is able to come out of it, not because of a love interest, but because sheās able to find her own strength. (And hit her mentor in the face with a weight.)
In fact, the main character doesnāt have any love interest at all.
You could make the argument that sheās aromantic/asexual.
And the author would totally support that argument.
But despite not having a love interest, the main character is truly cared for, especially by her gruff mentor with a heart of gold.
Did somebody say found families and father-figure-daughter-figure relationships?
Also thereās an interracial couple thirty years in the making.Ā
And an underground resistance of students with disabilities trying to prove that theyāre stronger than people think.
And in the end, theyāre able to save the day.
And there are a lot of hugs.
And a lot of chocolate milk.
And the main character comes to terms with the fact that her biological family is horrible but sheās fine with that because sheās got the gruff mentor with a heart of gold who may or may not be in the CIA and also knew Al Capone.
And nobody kills themselves because they think that their lives are over now that they are in fact disabled.
Oh and thereās a pig in a wheelchair.
And itās all written by a disabled college student who really really needs the money for college and her apartment because apparently life is expensive (who knew?)
And itās not the best written and itās not error free but it was written with a lot of heart and a lot of passion in the early hours of the morning because thatās when the author had free time. But if nothing else, it has amazing disability representation. And a pig in a wheelchair.
That author is me, that book is mine, that book is published, that book is available for you to buy, that book even comes in a paperback version so that you can hold in your hands a story with disability representation in which none of the characters die or talk about how theyāre a burden and how their lives are over (well, Juniper does once but Ryder knocks some sense into her.)
Itās called The Defectives and you can buy it here:
https://www.amazon.com/Defectives-Burgandi-Rakoska-ebook/dp/B01G7TTLXE?ie=UTF8&qid=1464304077&ref_=sr_1_1&s=digital-text&sr=1-1
So if youāre looking for disability representation that doesnāt end with death and you want to help out a novice disabled author who really needs the money, please consider buying this book.
If nothing else, please signal boost!
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