Sitting Pretty

I would recommend this book to everyone, especially people who haven't had the experience of having a disability or knowing someone with a disability that changes the way that they interact with the world. I have had a small taste of this when I broke my pelvis and used a motorized scooter in grocery stores. People were quite mean. I totally did not expect that. I also wrote about experiences traveling with a coworker who uses a wheelchair sometimes and the issues that we faced. Rebecca Taussig has been using a wheelchair since she was a child. She writes about recognizing her own internalized ableism that told her that she would never have a successful adult life. She talks about the specific difficulties she faced with finding accessible housing and navigating the government bureaucracies surrounding her benefits. I was very interested in her experience teaching classes featuring disabilities in high schools. The absolute disinterest from her students was heartbreaking. Their inability to see how any discussion of disability could ever impact them was infuriating. She makes great points about how people should embrace the ideas that disabled people have about how to improve society. She uses the example of curb cuts in sidewalks were for wheelchairs but they also help people with strollers and bicyclists. I think of how many events I was able to see during the height of the pandemic because they were online instead of in person only. That was a change that many disability activists have been advocating for a while. Once it benefited everyone it was easily done and now a lot of places are doing away with it when keeping it would still help people. The author narrates the audiobook and does a very nice job. The writing and narration are conversational so you feel like you are just listening to someone talk about their experiences. It is a very approachable book especially for people who are just being introduced to these ideas. This review was originally posted on Based On A True Story