Care Work

b00ksforeveryone reviewed Care Work by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

None

3 stars

i thought this was just okay. i finished their more recent work, the future is disabled, early last year, and had this one lingering in the back of my mind to read through. maybe because the other one is more recent and they have a more mature outlook on life, but i didn't find this as revolutionary. i will say, it is still making me sit with some feelings (ie crip doulaing, especially since i'm very fearful of becoming disabled as someone who forsees being single without biological family really in the picture for the long term if not for the rest of my life) so maybe that's the purpose and it's not supposed to be some big wow moment.

Jules, reading reviewed Care Work by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

I made it, but it wasn't easy

4 stars

I sure had a lot of feelings while reading this book. Mostly in a good way. In a "someone actually KNOWS" way. It also showed me possibilities and found words for experiences I never shared with anyone. Quite intense.

I still had a hard time reading it. It's a very lose collection of different essays or other pieces of writing the author accumulated over the years. Some are more accessible and polished than others. In this the format is part of telling the story of how you write a book as a disabled person with never enough spoons. In many ways it reads like a (very personal and local) disability organizing history focusing on North America. We need more of that, from more perspectives, it's something Leah talks about in the book too.

It is a book by and for disabled people, especially disabled POC, before anything else. …

I sure had a lot of feelings while reading this book. Mostly in a good way. In a "someone actually KNOWS" way. It also showed me possibilities and found words for experiences I never shared with anyone. Quite intense.

I still had a hard time reading it. It's a very lose collection of different essays or other pieces of writing the author accumulated over the years. Some are more accessible and polished than others. In this the format is part of telling the story of how you write a book as a disabled person with never enough spoons. In many ways it reads like a (very personal and local) disability organizing history focusing on North America. We need more of that, from more perspectives, it's something Leah talks about in the book too.

It is a book by and for disabled people, especially disabled POC, before anything else. And it's also great for learning something about what it feels like to survive.

I'm glad I finished it and took the time I needed. My issues with a certain style of American talking and writing made it a bit harder to read as I wished but there are still so many beautiful thoughts and ideas in there. It's worth putting in some effort.