Books To Read For Disability Pride Month 2023

Hello hello, and welcome or welcome back to my little bookish corner of the internet. Today I’m sharing my books to read this Disability Pride Month.

As a person with multiple disabilities and chronic illnesses, I strongly believe that we need to see more books with disabled characters in. We need to see all sorts of health conditions and disabilities represented, from real conditions to ones invented for fantasy books that have real impact on the characters.

Below are just some of the wonderful books out there which have characters with disabilities or chronic illnesses. I’ve mostly stuck to ones I’ve read and reviewed (a few with reviews to come) but there’s also a few which are still on my TBR that I’ve thought to include too.

Writers: there are always ways to make your characters disabled and it still be a fantastic book. Publishers: we deserve to see ourselves on your pages. Readers: you are worth writing about.

One For All – Lillie Lainoff
POTs

A Curse So Dark and Lonely – Brigid Kemmerer
Cerebral Palsy

The Girls Are Never Gone – Sarah Glenn Marsh
Type One Diabetes, with an assistance dog

Tea Dragon Society – Katie O’Neill
Wheelchair user

The Infernal Devices trilogy: Clockwork Angel, Clockwork Prince, Clockwork Princess – Cassandra Clare
Fantasy wasting illness resulting in fatigue, coughing of blood, loss of strengh

The Grimrose Girls – Laura Pohl
Fibromyalgia

At The Speed of Lies – Cindy L. Otis (Review to come)
Wheelchair user, Arthritis

Sixteen Souls – Rosie Talbot
Double amputee, prosthetic limbs, part-time wheelchair use

To Kill A Catfish – Polly Harris (Review to come)
Scoliosis

Broken Hearts and Zombie Parts – William Hussey (Review to come)
Heart failure and surgery

Four Found Dead – Natalie D. Richards
Epilepsy

Dread Wood series: Dread Wood, Fear Ground, Flock Horror – Jennifer Killick
Ileostomy bag

Get A Life, Chloe Brown – Talia Hibbert
Chronic Pain

Cinder – Marissa Meyer
Limb difference

The Sad Ghost Club – Lize Meddings
Anxiety and Depression

The Witch Elm – Tana French
Traumatic Brain Injury

Into the Drowning Deep – Mira Grant (Review to come)
Neurodiversity, spine damage and chronic pain, deaf twin characters

The Rules of Seeing – Joe Heap
Visual Impairment

My Heart to Find – Elin Annalise
Brain inflammation caused by Lyme Disease, leading to OCD

Shield Maiden – Sharon Emmerichs
Limb damage from accident

The First Move – Jenny Ireland (Review to come)
Arthritis, use of mobility aids

Sh!t Bag – Xena Knox (Review to come)
Ileostomy, multiple characters with bowel difficulties

Fourth Wing – Rebecca Yarros (Review to come)
Fantasy illness causing fatigue, body structure weakness and pain

There we have it. An absolutely not exclusive but hopefully through list of books, many with reviews, that have various health conditions and disabilities represented.

Is your favourite book on this list? I want to know, especially if it isn’t – let me know what I should read next!

Thanks for stopping by today for this list. I’ve been talking about some of these books over on my TikTok (username is AndOnSheReads), and I’ll be talking about more still. I really want to read as many books with disabled characters as I can, so if you’ve got any recommendations for me, I’d love to know.