This book was such an easy read. The elder millennial humor dates it quite a bit, but I also feel like that’s relevant because that’s how a lot of people interact now. And plus, that’s my style of humor, so I enjoyed it. It read like I was on FaceTime with a friend of mine. The main character is fallible and frustrating and annoying, but I think that’s the point. Just because he’s gay and disabled doesn’t automatically mean that he should be a saint. There are some shitty gay people and some shitty disabled people. And I 100% get the thought process of ‘I’m so tired of people commenting on everything wrong with my body, so I just want someone to treat me normal for just a second. Even if I have to pay them’. I also enjoyed the way that addiction was portrayed. It’s not always so fucking depressing and obvious. Sometimes it just kind of sneaks up on you. And sometimes you can get addicted to everyday things or people. 

*Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC

Funny yet subtly dark, Just By Looking at Him is a deep dive into the trials and triumphs of its queer disabled protagonist, whose memorably acerbic and hilarious narrative voice belies a lot of vulnerabilities, and a rare exploration of a severely underrepresented subject.

This book is messy because its main character Elliott is. Living a seemingly perfect life with a great career and stable long-term relationship, but when Elliott hires a sex worker, things gradually start to unravel and he has to come to terms with his shiny-surface life that belies a lifetime of unconscious self-hatred fueled by an ableist society. With this novel, O'Connell asks: how can Elliott not be, in his own words, "seven layers of fucked up" when that is the message society has been sending his cerebral palsy-having self all his life?

Although this book deals with quite a serious subject matter, it does it all with gusto and, most endearingly, hilarity. Elliott's narrative voice and inner monologue are endlessly hilarious even in serious moments (I lost count on how many times I LOL-ed and chuckled..), and this is hands down one of the funniest books I read so far this year.

What I most enjoy about Just By Looking at Him, however, is the character development and the accompanying emotional resonance that gradually crescendoes towards the end. This is especially particular to things revolving around Elliott and disability: his and others' relationship with it, his navigation around it, his feelings towards others with it; all of the aforementioned are nuanced and uncomfortable, and while reading, it is not only Elliott who comes to a realization, but the reader with their own unconscious bias as well. 

Diverse books are great not because they are diverse, but what we learn and vicariously experience from said diversity, how our worldview is expanded yet its unconscious preconceptions and judgments also challenged. Such is the case with this book. There has been increasing representation particularly with race and gender, but disability - especially queer disability - is still overwhelmingly underrepresented. Reading this book, therefore, is a privilege, and I am very grateful to O'Connell for writing it.