Sitting Pretty

"I'm a teenager who suffers from frequent pain. Ask any of my friends or family members and they will tell you how many times I've missed school because I'll wake up and my back hurts, my legs hurt, my knees hurt, or I've woke with <I> another </i> pounding headache that I'm not entirely sure, but I think is what a hangover feels like. One of my best friends and I make jokes about it because we both experience the same kind of pain. As I'm writing this, my back hurts for no particular reason. I can relate to some of this author's struggles. Not all of them, in fact, some of her struggles are the complete opposite of mine.<br/><br/>When she talked about getting unsolicited advice I was like "oh not those assholes." I can tell a person "oh my hip really hurts bad today" and they'll tell me to get out of bed more without knowing at all active I've been. Yes, staying in bed a lot can cause you pain. I've experienced this many times on my frequent sick days. But trust me. They're completely two different types of pain. I've seen accusing glances when I tell people 'sorry, my back hurts really bad. I can't do this right now.' Because of my age, they usually assume that I'm lying and making an excuse to get out of something. I've skipped exercises in PE before because my knee feels weird, and I don't want it to do that thing where it pops really bad and sends me stumbling to the ground. (My PE teacher understood this because he witnessed this event happening and almost called for a wheelchair because I was immobilized for a few minutes). Some people don't get this and think I'm just being lazy which is probably one of the most jackass assumptions I've ever heard. <br/><br/>The reasons I'm talking about this are that 1. I feel like it's the place for this and 2. I feel like it agrees with the author's description of ableism. Why should I (or anybody) have to push through extreme headaches, hip pain, back pain, etc to make other people happy? Why should people in wheelchairs be expected to make themselves small for the sake of other people? Why do we have to make other people comfortable before we make ourselves comfortable? <br/><br/>Anyway, enough about me. On to the actual book. <br/><br/>The tone was the perfect mix of solid, informational facts and personal anecdotes. To me, personal experiences only solidify what we're being told. While studies are easy to believe if they come from a source, hearing a person being like 'yep that's true, lemme tell you how it's affected me' gets me much more passionate about it. <br/><br/>The author didn't feel like she was dumbing anything down for the audience but didn't feel like she was going out of her way to sound pretentious. She talked in a way where you could feel her irritation and pain with these ableist encounters. I enjoyed listening to her narrative but was also solemn when she talked about serious problems within our society. Her chapter on feminism made me think a lot. (And no, it's nothing like 'hot take, feminism is bad' like those random ass videos you see on YouTube shorts that make no sense). <br/><br/>There wasn't really anything I disagreed with but there was one incident I want to talk about. Basically, Rebekah Taussig goes to an event, and early on in one of the performances, she notes that the disabled people in the dance are being moved around like props. This I was kind of like 'eh, their wheelchairs might not be able to move around very well or they could get tired very easily' but didn't think much about it. Later she notes that a 10-year-old girl shouts at the crowd 'GIVE US MONEY' so they'll fund the accessible parks the event is supposed to be sponsoring. The author notes that this plays into the disabled beggar stereotype. <br/><br/>Now, I'm not denying this is a stereotype, but the implications are the organizers asked the girl to do this, and I'm not sure I'm ready to jump to that conclusion. 10-year-olds like to make people laugh. I actually remember a similar experience when my group in a drama class performance shouted 'GIVE US AN A' before running off stage. It was just to make people laugh. We weren't actually begging for an A. Maybe it was because of this experience, but I kind of felt so-so about this section compared to the rest of the book. I wasn't there, though, so I can't say for certain what the vibes were. <br/><br/>If you want an informative, humorous but also serious book about disability <I> Sitting Pretty </i> is for you. I really enjoyed listening to the audiobook, and I definitely recommend it."

"In my opinion, this is an important book for everyone to read."