Lake Bluff Library Adult Reading Lists: People With Disabilities

A groundbreaking collection of first-person writing on the joys and challenges of the modern disability experience: Disability Visibility brings together the voices of activists, authors, lawyers, politicians, artists, and everyday people whose daily lives are, in the words of playwright Neil Marcus, "an art . . . an ingenious way to live." (Description from catalog.)

The Iraq War veteran traces her impoverished childhood, her decision to join the Army, the months spent recovering from the RPG attack that shot down her helicopter and nearly took her life, and her subsequent mission of serving in elected office. (Description from catalog)

A moving exploration of the crisis of homeless youth--told through the inspiring stories of a woman on the frontlines and the kids themselves.
(Description from NoveList)

Patric Gagne realized she made others uncomfortable before she started kindergarten. Something about her caused people to react in a way she didn't understand. She suspected it was because she didn't feel things the way other kids did. She did her best to pretend she was like everyone else, but the constant pressure to conform was unbearable. So Patric stole. She lied. She was occasionally violent. She became an expert lock-picker and home-invader. All with the goal of replacing the nothingness with...something. In college, Patric finally confirmed what she'd long suspected. She was a sociopath.
(Description from catalog)

Daniel Tammet - acclaimed author and an autistic savant himself - draws out the inner worlds of nine extraordinary, neurodivergent lives from around the globe. From a Fields Medal–winning mathematician to a murder detective, a pioneering surgeon to a bestselling novelist, each is remarkable in their field, and each is changing how the world sees those on the spectrum.
(Description from NoveList)

The creator of the YouTube channel How to ADHD shares the insights and strategies that help her thrive in this accessible and shame-free guide to working with, understanding, and celebrating the ADHD brain.
(Description from catalog)

Grammy-nominated musician Allison Moorer's lyrical memoir, a testament to love and resilience through the lens of parenting her young son, John Henry, who has nonverbal autism.
(Description from catalog)

Maddy Banks is just like any other stressed-out sophomore at NYU. Between schoolwork, it’s normal to be feeling overwhelmed. But Maddy’s latest low is devastatingly low, and she goes on an antidepressant. She begins to feel good, dazzling in fact, and she soon spirals high into a wild and terrifying mania that culminates in a diagnosis of bipolar disorder.
(Description from NoveList)

A dramatic murder trial in the aftermath of an experimental medical treatment and a fatal explosion upends a rural Virginia community where personal secrets and private ambitions complicate efforts to uncover what happened. (Description from NoveList.)

Nadya had three mothers: the one who bore her, the country that poisoned her, and the one who adopted her. She never felt incomplete until her adoptive parents fitted her with a prosthetic arm against her will. It was cumbersome and uncomfortable. Frustrated, Nadya wandered until she fell through a door into Belyrreka, the Land Beneath the Lake, a world of water filled with child-eating amphibians and majestic turtles. There, she was understood as a Drowned Girl, accepted by the river and its people.
(Description from NoveList)

This revelatory novel plunges readers into the halls of a residential school for the deaf, where they'll meet Charlie, a rebellious transfer student who's never met another deaf person before; Austin, the school's golden boy, whose world is rocked when his baby sister is born hearing; and February, the headmistress, who is fighting to keep her school open and her marriage intact, but might not be able to do both at the same time. As a series of crises both personal and political threaten to unravel each of them, Charlie, Austin, and February find their lives inextricable from one another--and changed forever.
(Description from catalog)

After being fired and facing yet another novel rejection, aspiring author Zelu writes a futuristic epic about AI and robots, unknowingly setting herself on a path to literary stardom that could change the future of humanity.
(Description from NoveList)

On a stormy summer day the Aosawas, owners of a prominent local hospital, host a large birthday party, but the occasion turns into tragedy when 17 people die from cyanide in their drinks. The only surviving links to what might have happened are a cryptic verse that could be the killer's, and the physician's bewitching blind daughter, Hisako, the only person spared injury. (Description from Amazon.)

1938. Lena Papadopoulos has never quite found her place within the circus. The daughter of headlining illusionist Theo, Lena uses a wheelchair after a childhood bout of polio. She rescues Alexandre, an orphan with his own secrets and mysterious past. As World War II escalates, the boy trains as the illusionist's apprentice. When Theo and Alexandre are arrested and made to perform in Theresienstadt, a town for Jews set up by the Nazis, Lena must confront her doubts and dare to believe in the impossible: herself.
(Description from catalog)

On a bitter-cold day, in the December of his junior year at Harvard, Sam Masur exits a subway car and sees, amid the hordes of people waiting on the platform, Sadie Green. He calls her name. For a moment, she pretends she hasn’t heard him, but then, she turns, and a game begins: a legendary collaboration that will launch them to stardom.
(Description from Amazon)

Solutions and Other Problems includes humorous stories from Allie Brosh's childhood; the adventures of her very bad animals; merciless dissection of her own character flaws; incisive essays on grief, loneliness, and powerlessness; as well as reflections on the absurdity of modern life. (Description from catalog.)

Judith is barely out of her teens when a tumor begins pressing on her brain, ushering in a new world of seizures, memory gaps, and loss of self. Suddenly, the sentence of her normal life has been interrupted by the opening of a parenthesis that may never close. Based on the real experiences of cartoonist Élodie Durand, Parenthesis is a gripping testament of struggle, fragility, acceptance, and transformation which was deservedly awarded the Revelation Prize of the Angoulême International Comics Festival."--Amazon.

"In a world that is no stranger to superheroes, George Gibson is invulnerable to physical harm but fights every day to stay alive. Suffering from an acute case of type 1 diabetes, his invincibility is offset by a defective pancreas that must be monitored and treated daily. This incurable disease makes George's body both his greatest strength and his eternal weakness. What sets this series apart is a positive, person-first representation about life with a chronic disease . . . which just so happens to also include superhuman abilities. But, Ripple Effects isn't just a story about a character with an incurable disease. It's also a thrilling and relevant superhero tale that touches on the difficulty of finding a work/life balance, the class struggles and economic inequality experienced by many in our nation, and the desire to help others during trying times." -- from publisher website.