I have to admit that I ended up increasingly frustrated with this book as it continued and finished with very mixed opinions about it. There were shining moments that really shone, such as the way Hedva demonstrated how mutual aid and collective care should look like (especially in the capitalist society we’re living in), or when they discussed what disability justice through an intersectional lens looked like. I particularly appreciated the deliberate attention they gave to class, which I do think is a category that isn’t as talked about despite the significant impact it has on our lives. With that said, I do think that what Hedva discussed in this book may be repetitive for those who have some background in disability activism. For those who don’t have that knowledge, though, this book does a great job facing the frustrating complexities of ableism and sanism. One thing that didn’t quite work for me was that Hedva kept introducing a lot of concepts, repeatedly doing their best to connect it to disability and ableism. While I appreciated that they wanted to show how everything was interconnected, I felt that they were trying to squeeze too much content into the book that it started to erode the main points.

Stylistically and structurally, I felt this was where the book really suffered. While this wasn’t an issue for me, I can see how this book may be a bit off-putting for some readers due to Hedva’s tendency to write in a more academic style. Yet, at the same time, they sprinkled in slang and other colloquialisms in a way that made it difficult to determine who they wanted their audience to be. It was difficult to figure out the tone of the book, as a result, to the point that it made it difficult to immerse myself on multiple occasions, and I couldn’t help but feel that this mixing of formal and informal language didn’t work. Relatedly, I’ve noticed an increase in books that would be part-essay collection, part-memoir, including Hedva’s book. Unfortunately, the way they decided to approach the essay/memoir combo didn’t work for me at all, and I found the second half of the book to be a bit of a slog. I think part of the reason this didn’t work is because of the difficulty in pinpointing the tone/audience. Lastly on this subject, this is more a matter of personal taste than anything, but another reason why I struggled through the second half of the book was because I admittedly felt that the writing got really cringey at times. For example, I’m all for kink inclusivity and sex positivity, but the way Hedva delivered this just wasn’t it. There were a few other instances that made me raise my eyebrows, not because I was scandalized but more because I couldn’t quite pinpoint why it bugged me that Hedva decided to frame certain moments or conversations the way they did.

Again, I appreciate what Hedva brings to the conversation around ableism and disability, and I think there were some shining moments in this book. Unfortunately, I found how the rest of the essay collection/memoir was delivered really frustrating and cumbersome. I’m rather disappointed that this book didn’t work for me.