bohavi's review against another edition
3.25
This book tried to do too much at once. Although I appreciated the descriptions of Leduc’s own experience, the book lacked a certain narrative and, therefore, a purpose. From the title, I expected an in-depth analysis of well-known fairy tales that have shaped the way we look at society. The harmful portrayal of disability is definitely something worth talking about and I applaud the author for choosing such a bold topic. However, it was painfully obvious that Leduc used the fairy tales as an analogy for her own experience of disability, cherry picking the parts that resonated with her most. As is stated in many other reviews, she focuses on Ariel losing her tale, but totally overlooks her mutism. She filters the wide spectrum of disabilities and chooses the ones that are the most similar to hers. Although I can’t blame her for writing about what she clearly knows best, I can’t help but feel misrepresented by this book. As a book that covers so many topics (fairy tales, inaccessibility and social prejudices towards disabled people, as well as the writer’s medical files and her own anecdotes), it does surprisingly little to cover a broad spectrum of disabilities. It was especially hurtful when the author tried to downplay all the struggles that disabled people have. As a person who’s disability isn’t visible from the outside, it’s already difficult to convince people of my having one and expect them to adapt to my needs.
However, overall, I think it is a decent book. Those who know little about social issues regarding disability will definitely learn a lot. Also, people who maybe share a similar experience to the author will be met with a lot of observations and reflections from her part. The parts where she talks about her childhood where especially touching. Again, I think that the book would have been much better if the author knew what their audience was and went into as much or as little detail accordingly.
However, overall, I think it is a decent book. Those who know little about social issues regarding disability will definitely learn a lot. Also, people who maybe share a similar experience to the author will be met with a lot of observations and reflections from her part. The parts where she talks about her childhood where especially touching. Again, I think that the book would have been much better if the author knew what their audience was and went into as much or as little detail accordingly.
shelbyelby's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
saucy_bookdragon's review against another edition
challenging
informative
reflective
fast-paced
"The stories we tell need to be different. It is no more and no less than that."
No rating as this is meant to be educational nonfiction.
Disfigured is a good jumping off point for learning about analysis through the lense of disability, I didn't personally get much out of it as I've taken a disability studies class and have several disabled family and friends, but I can see how someone who's less educated would get a lot out of this.
The book is at its strongest when analyzing folktales, discussing how tied disability is to tragedy and villainy and how it reflects real life attitudes. It's at its weakest when it strays into modern media such as Disney, Marvel, and Game of Thrones as it's tangential and has less evidence and context. I found the Marvel section especially weak as it seems the author is not that familiar with it outside MCU movies and it's the most tangential section. Though I liked her analysis of the Captain Marvel movie and some of her take on Captain America, though it lacked the Jewish context and reading of CA.
(Some things she got wrong about Marvel where: claiming Carol Danvers is the first female Captain Marvel, Monica Rambeau was; claiming Prof. X was an example of disability tied to superpowers when his telepathy and paralysis don't have anything to do with each other; and spelling Iron Man as one word.)
The book also needed more intersectionality. There is a good discussion on gender and disability rep and some comments about race, but it's odd how in a book about fairy tales antisemitism isn't brought up or how in the section on Disney queercoding is never mentioned. These things aren't separate from disability rep, everything is intertwined.
I'd recommend Disfigured to people interested in learning more about disability representation, especially a) fantasy writers as one of the things I got out of it was deeper thinking on how I represent disability in my own stories and b) people who feel they're lacking in knowledge about disability activism and analysis.
No rating as this is meant to be educational nonfiction.
Disfigured is a good jumping off point for learning about analysis through the lense of disability, I didn't personally get much out of it as I've taken a disability studies class and have several disabled family and friends, but I can see how someone who's less educated would get a lot out of this.
The book is at its strongest when analyzing folktales, discussing how tied disability is to tragedy and villainy and how it reflects real life attitudes. It's at its weakest when it strays into modern media such as Disney, Marvel, and Game of Thrones as it's tangential and has less evidence and context. I found the Marvel section especially weak as it seems the author is not that familiar with it outside MCU movies and it's the most tangential section. Though I liked her analysis of the Captain Marvel movie and some of her take on Captain America, though it lacked the Jewish context and reading of CA.
(Some things she got wrong about Marvel where: claiming Carol Danvers is the first female Captain Marvel, Monica Rambeau was; claiming Prof. X was an example of disability tied to superpowers when his telepathy and paralysis don't have anything to do with each other; and spelling Iron Man as one word.)
The book also needed more intersectionality. There is a good discussion on gender and disability rep and some comments about race, but it's odd how in a book about fairy tales antisemitism isn't brought up or how in the section on Disney queercoding is never mentioned. These things aren't separate from disability rep, everything is intertwined.
I'd recommend Disfigured to people interested in learning more about disability representation, especially a) fantasy writers as one of the things I got out of it was deeper thinking on how I represent disability in my own stories and b) people who feel they're lacking in knowledge about disability activism and analysis.