Hi friends!

Today you’ll get a Top 5 Tuesday and a Top 10 Tuesday all rolled into one because….I had 10 books for my Top 5 😆 

Let’s introduce your to these “Top” first if you are not familiar:

Top 5 Tuesday is back! Long hosted by Shanah @bionicbookworm (she was the creator), she has now new challenges awaiting her and Meeghan from @meeghanreads has become our new mastermind!!!

This week’s topic was books with disabled characters. And I had way more than 5 books!

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl

in January 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.  

This week’s theme is books I’d like to reread. 

So I decided to go for ten amazing books with disabled characters that I loved so much that I’d want to reread! Disabled can be physically or mentally of course. 

Archer’s Voice by Mia Sheridan : deaf

“Sometimes an understanding silence was better than a bunch of meaningless words.” 

The Not Outcast by Tijan: psychological disability

That book is published today and my review will be published here tomorrow but Cheyenne, the female MC, had big psychological problems coming from physiological unbalance.

“With my stuff, a person goes through a situation where they really question things at a deeper level. Like, would it be fair to bring someone else in on the struggle you endure every day? If you did, was it fair to bring a child into the world who had a mother with the struggles I had? On the surface, she would seem to be just a mom who’s distracted or disorganized.
But follow down the line, and it’s a mom who’s not listening to you. It’s a mom who forgets to pick you up. It’s a mom who forgot to pay your meal plan for a year, for the second year, for a third year. It’s a mom who forgets to pick you up not once, but twice, three, four, five… The intent is there. The love is always there, but the struggles are there, and they are often greater than the whole, and they can chip away at a person, at a child, at a husband, at a wife. If something gets chipped away at enough, holes get created and those holes get bigger and bigger over the years.”

Making Faces by Amy Harmon: Dushenne

Bailey is disabled. He suffers from Dushenne muscular dystrophy and his muscles weaken every day. He knows from a tender age he’ll die early.

“You can’t have an animal in here, Sheen.”
“I’m in a wheelchair, man. You gonna tell me I can’t have my seeing-eye cat with me? Actually, it can be your seeing-eye cat, since you’re blind and all. One of the perks to being a pathetic figure is that I tend to get what I want.”

The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang : Autism

Stella suffers from autism. She is an Asperger.

“This crusade to fix herself was ending right now. She wasn’t broken. She saw and interacted with the world in a different way, but that was her. She could change her actions, change her words, change her appearance, but she couldn’t change the root of herself. At her core, she would always be autistic. People called it a disorder, but it didn’t feel like one. To her, it was simply the way she was.”

Priceless by Linda Kage : Cerebral palsy

Yes Sam has cerebral palsy, yes she can’t walk and has tremors in her limbs and sometime a little drool on the lips but no, this is not a pity party. She is a fighter and the book is not depressing in the least. It’s about hope, pure determination to improve her condition and live a normal life. It’s about friendship and a whole web of supportive friends and family. It’s about an incredible friend falling for his best friend and wanting to live at her side and build a family.

Real by Katy Evans : bipolar

Remy is a professional fighter but he also is bipolar. Going through extreme high and extreme low.

“Brooke, I need you to know who I am. What I am.”

Grayson by Lisa Eugene : schizophrenia

Greyson is incredible. He’s suffered from mild schizophrenia half his life. He does not want to take his medicine and is battling every moment of the day to discern what’s real and what’s not. Yet, he is a genius and can make rational decisions. In that way, he reminded me of the movie “A beautiful Man” with Russel Crowe featuring John Forbes Nash.
Grayson is one of the strongest persons I’ve recently read about as his life is a constant struggle.

All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven : Bipolar

Theodore Fynch is bipolar and left me in tears

“You deserve better. I can’t promise you I’ll stay around, not because I don’t want to. It’s hard to explain. I’m a fuckup. I’m broken, and no one can fix it. I’ve tried. I’m still trying. I can’t love anyone because it’s not fair to anyone who loves me back. I’ll never hurt you, not like I want to hurt Roamer. But I can’t promise I won’t pick you apart, piece by piece, until you’re in a thousand pieces, just like me. You should know what you’re getting into before getting involved.”

A Curse so Dark and Lonely  by Brigid Kemmerer : cerebral palsy

Harper was the girl neither prince Rhen neither Commander Grey expected! She did not meet any of their criteria.
Born with cerebral palsy she fought all her life to work around her handicap. Courageous, determined, fierce she refused to let it cripple her life and determine who she was! I loved that Brigid Kemmerer chose a “flawed” heroine, one born with bad cards yet who managed through sheer determination to raise above her handicap and accomplish extraordinary things.
Harper was not only brave but also extremely generous and wore her heart on her sleeve.
Life had been hard on more than one way on her and she learned not to trust easily and to call it rubbish when it was.
She was the least classic fairy tale princess from all the “chosen” girls yet she could not have been better suited for the role!

I’ll Meet You There by Heather Demetrios: amputated

Josh the male main character has lost his leg at war.

Josh is a marine, back from Afghanistan.

He’s lost his leg.

He’s lost his friends.

He feels the survivor guilt.

Previous womanizer and devil may care he has to find his place in society now. Why was he spared? He didn’t deserve to survive. He is the “up to no good “guy while his friends had projects. A future.

That was my top 10 books I’d like to reread that have disabled characters. Honestly all stole my heart so go for it!

Thanks for reading!

Sophie