foggy_rosamund's review
5.0
A moving and important novel about John Moon, a 26-year-old Deaf-blind man. John was born blind, but lost his hearing after being beaten by his father. This sounds like an incredibly grim premise, and this is a difficult and painful story, but it's also a passionate plea for autonomy and dignity for all disabled people, and a book which cherishes different ways to experience reality. John works at a factory which employs some disabled people, assembling parts or sorting objects. His world feels small to him: arbitrary rules created by abled people govern his life, and he often misses the chance to make connections with people or find the answers to his questions. The Sighted-Hearing world is governed by strange rules and experiences beyond his comprehension: although he passionately curious, an avid reader, keen to make connections with people around him, and writes poetry.
At his job, he meets Leda, a Sighted-Hearing woman, who takes an interest in him, and gradually becomes his friend and lover, and begins to help him make sense of a wider world which has dismissed him or refused to allow him to find connections. I found this book incredibly important because of its acceptance of disabled lives and that a disabled way of being as not lesser or unimportant. Of Such Small Differences achieves an incredible balance between allowing us to see the things that are painful, hopeless or deeply unfair in John's life, while also prizing his autonomy and his right to exist in the world just the way he is. His reality is as important as anyone else's reality. I felt like this book was sitting with me and giving me permission to lament the ways in which the world is hard and painful and traumatic, and but at the same time never talking down to me, and never taking away the importance of our diverse experiences. Joanne Greenberg's In This Sign also captures important insights into disabled life though following a Deaf family, but I found this book even more moving and it commanded my attention completely. I'm so glad this story exists and that I found it.
At his job, he meets Leda, a Sighted-Hearing woman, who takes an interest in him, and gradually becomes his friend and lover, and begins to help him make sense of a wider world which has dismissed him or refused to allow him to find connections. I found this book incredibly important because of its acceptance of disabled lives and that a disabled way of being as not lesser or unimportant. Of Such Small Differences achieves an incredible balance between allowing us to see the things that are painful, hopeless or deeply unfair in John's life, while also prizing his autonomy and his right to exist in the world just the way he is. His reality is as important as anyone else's reality. I felt like this book was sitting with me and giving me permission to lament the ways in which the world is hard and painful and traumatic, and but at the same time never talking down to me, and never taking away the importance of our diverse experiences. Joanne Greenberg's In This Sign also captures important insights into disabled life though following a Deaf family, but I found this book even more moving and it commanded my attention completely. I'm so glad this story exists and that I found it.
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