Tag: Depression

Posted in Books

â™żïž The Bookish Mutant’s Books for Disability Pride Month (2026 Edition) â™żïž

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Monday, bibliophiles!

Here in the U.S., July is Disability Pride Month! It seems like every year, representation—and all-around recognition—for disabled people only progresses by millimeters. Time and time again, it’s left on the back burner by so-called intersectional activists, continually ignored from unaccommodating public education to inaccessible infrastructure in the biggest cities and the smallest towns. It’s gotten bleaker still with the damaging rhetoric spread by R.F.K. Junior and by the Trump administration at large. And we’ve somehow let the r-word insidiously creep back into common use. I feel like it’s relevant that when I was in high school, I frequently heard people call their phones “autistic” when they were broken or not working—2019 wasn’t as long as ago as people would like to think. Dehumanizing disabled people has always been baked deep into the roots of our language and slang—and yet it’s so easy to just switch words around.

In short, the world hasn’t exactly gotten kinder to any of us in the disabled community. But recently my best friend sent me this hilarious (and wonderful) reel, and it reminded me of the endurance of our community:

Yes, this is totally goofy. But it’s true. Despite all of the rampant campaigns to dehumanize and outright eradicate disabled people in all aspects of life, we are still here. The disabled community is as diverse as our struggles, but we have weathered all of them. There are countless issues that we have to face, in the highest forms of government and even in the simple ways we interact with friends and strangers. But if there’s one thing that the disabled community has done, it is endure—and endurance is nothing without community. The strength of our community is what has allowed us to create a more accessible world, little by little, and it is the key for making the world a kinder and more accessible place to be.

Also, four years out from my installation of this post where I talked about the absolute dearth of SPD representation out there (see 2022 in the “previous lists” section below), I’ve finally read one more book with a main character with SPD. Halfway through 2026, and it was one of the best books I’ve read this year by a long shot. Thank you, Jamie Sumner. Representation matters. đŸ©”

NOTE: my memory (and the internet) is imperfect, so if I’ve misrepresented/mislabeled any of the specific rep in these books, don’t hesitate to let me know!

KEY FOR TERMS IN THIS POST:

  • MC: Main character
  • LI: Love interest
  • SC: Side character

For my previous lists, click below: 

Let’s begin, shall we?

â™żïž THE BOOKISH MUTANT’S BOOKS FOR DISABILITY PRIDE MONTH (2026 EDITION) â™żïž

FANTASY:

SCIENCE FICTION:

REALISTIC/HISTORICAL FICTION:

*the POV character in Pod is a dolphin, but I feel that the representation still counts.

NONFICTION:

TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK! Have you read any of the books on this list? What are your favorite books with disability rep? Let me know in the comments!

Today’s song:

THIS JUST IN, ROLE MODEL HERMIT IS A BANGER

That’s it for this post! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Book Review Tuesday

Book Review Tuesday (6/30/26) – Where Sleeping Girls Lie

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles, and if you’re a fellow Coloradan, happy Election Day! Get your ballots in by 7 pm today for them to be counted! (And preferably cast your vote for Julie Gonzales for Senate—we need somebody truly progressive, not another AIPAC-backed old white dude in office.)

we don’t need hickenlooper anymore, get him outta here…

I was a fan of Faridah ÀbĂ­kĂ©-ÍyĂ­mĂ­dĂ©’s Ace of Spades back when it first came out in 2021. Even though it’d been almost five years since I’d read a book of hers, I figured I’d give Where Sleeping Girls Lie a shot. Although it was by no means perfect, Where Sleeping Girls Lie was still a tense and fast-paced mystery.

Enjoy this week’s review!

Where Sleeping Girls Lie – Faridah ÀbĂ­kĂ©-ÍyĂ­mĂ­dĂ©

Sade Hussein is ready to start over—no matter the cost. Freshly an orphan and homeschooled all her life, she’s enrolled in Alfred Noble Academy, a cutthroat boarding school where only the most privileged earn a spot. She has her reservations, but she finds comfort in Elizabeth, her roommate and fellow outsider. But when Elizabeth goes missing and the faculty of ANA doesn’t seem to care, Sade knows that the school has something sinister lurking beneath the surface—and she’ll do anything to expose it.

TW/CW: rape/sexual assault themes, suicide, animal death, substance abuse, murder, loss of loved ones

WARNING: this review contains spoilers! Proceed with caution if you want to read this book and haven’t yet.

It’s been almost five years since I read Ace of Spaces. My tastes have inevitably shifted a bit. But it says something that Faridah ÀbĂ­kĂ©-ÍyĂ­mĂ­dĂ©’s writing feels just as sharp, even though I’m no longer in the target audience. Where Sleeping Girls Lie is a timely mystery that kept me hooked!

Faridah ÀbĂ­kĂ©-ÍyĂ­mĂ­dĂ© has still got it. Where Sleeping Girls Lie is, for the most part, both excellently plotted and paced. This book is just over 400 pages (on my Kindle edition, at least), and I managed to blow through it in only two days. (Yes, I know I’m a fast reader, but for me, that’s still saying something.) Every beat of the mystery of Elizabeth’s mystery—and the sinister underbelly of ANA that gets exposed in the process—was meticulously planned, and I loved how the back-and-forth between Sade and Baz developed along with the clues they discovered. It was so grippingly written, and ÀbĂ­kĂ©-ÍyĂ­mĂ­dĂ© did such an excellent job of spreading the mystery and reveals out in a logical but still fast-paced way, giving enough breathing room between reveals to keep me hooked for the whole novel.

I also really enjoyed the dynamic between Sade and the other characters. Although there were times when ÀbĂ­kĂ©-ÍyĂ­mĂ­dĂ©’s writing felt a little too YA and her humor didn’t always land, she did a fantastic job writing the effortless rapport between all of the main characters. The dynamic between Sade and Baz was sweet, but I think I enjoyed the slow-burn romance between Sade and Persephone the most; in an age group where it’s so easy to write halfhearted insta-love, ÀbĂ­kĂ©-ÍyĂ­mĂ­dĂ©’s gradual, will-they-won’t-they dynamic between the two girls was one that I was rooting for from the start. As with her other novels, there’s diversity aplenty—it’s always so cool to see protagonists like Sade (Black, Muslim, sapphic, and has depression and C-PTSD) in the spotlight, and the diversity in this novel felt so effortless and natural. And as Where Sleeping Girls Lie deals with all manner of slimy, predatory characters, I enjoyed the nuance that ÀbĂ­kĂ©-ÍyĂ­mĂ­dĂ© applied to the many gross characters (especially Jude and August)—they weren’t cardboard villains, but realistic manipulators who had built up charming exteriors and skirted around the blame for their reprehensible actions.

That brings me to the main theme of Where Sleeping Girls Lie; I put trigger/content warnings at the top of all my reviews, but I would highly suggest keeping them in mind before reading this book. This novel deals a lot with rape culture, sexual assault, and how systemic misogyny protects powerful men from ever facing the consequences of their actions. While this novel is technically a murder mystery, there isn’t a singular “villain” to pin the crime on: the villain is the system, which I think is the best way to do justice to this issue. The resolution isn’t neatly tied in a bow, and all of the bad guys don’t get paraded off to jail; while Sade and the others get some semblance of closure, I liked that ÀbĂ­kĂ©-ÍyĂ­mĂ­dĂ© didn’t shy away from the fact that more often than not, rapists and misogynists are allowed by our patriarchal system to get off scot-free. Sade also has depression and C-PTSD, and while I can’t speak to the accuracy of the representation, I appreciated ÀbĂ­kĂ©-ÍyĂ­mĂ­dĂ©’s depiction of how such traumatic events can become deeply embedded into a person like her. It’s a biting indictment of rape culture that pulls no punches—exactly as it should be.

However, Where Sleeping Girls Lie faltered in the handling of its twists. Ultimately, what happens in the next two paragraphs is the main reason this didn’t get the full four stars from me. From the start, there’s the matter of Sade being an unreliable narrator; while ÀbĂ­kĂ©-ÍyĂ­mĂ­dĂ© maintains this for a solid amount of time, it feels like she all but abandoned the twist with Jamila until the last minute. We get Sade’s hallucinations/dreams about Jamila early on in the book, which were excellent in terms of building up the eerie atmosphere. However, they’re then completely forgotten, and there’s no further indication of Jamila’s role in the story until we get the reveal about her—to say that it’s put on the backburner is an understatement. It’s like ÀbĂ­kĂ©-ÍyĂ­mĂ­dĂ© completely forgot about her existence and then had to scramble to include her during the Big Reveal (with a capital B). I’m all for a surprise twists, but it feels like after the first 30 pages of the book, there’s hardly any indication that Sade has something that drastic to hide. I find it hard to believe that Sade didn’t even have a handful of fleeting memories of her recently dead twin sister throughout this entire thing.

The same can be said about the twist about Francis at the end of Where Sleeping Girls Lie. I get that the message was supposed to be that the “culprit” of the mystery was meant to be the system of patriarchy/rape culture/misogyny, and I appreciated that choice. But the twist about Jude being offhandedly killed by Francis out of nowhere just didn’t make much sense. Like with Jamila, it felt like ÀbĂ­kĂ©-ÍyĂ­mĂ­dĂ© had built up this intricate web for the Fishermen plot, and then forgot that there was supposed to be a culprit to the murder, and just threw a dart at one of the more unlikable characters just so that the more nuanced characters didn’t have to take the fall. The rest of the mystery of Where Sleeping Girls Lie was so well plotted that it just felt cheap to pin it on a relatively inconsequential character and move on.

All in all, a gripping YA mystery that grabbed my attention, but failed to clinch the full four stars for the handling of its twists. 3.75 stars!

Where Sleeping Girls Lie is a standalone, but Faridah ÀbĂ­kĂ©-ÍyĂ­mĂ­dĂ© has also released Much Ado About Persephone, a short story set after the events of the novel. She is also the author of Ace of Spades, The Heirs, the co-author of Four Eids and a Funeral (with Adiba Jaigirdar), and has contributed to several short story anthologies, including The White Guy Dies First: 13 Stories of Fear and Power, Doctor Who: Origin Stories, Black Joy, and more.

Today’s song:

happy end of pride month. god, I love britpop.

That’s it for this week’s Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Book Review Tuesday

Book Review Tuesday (7/23/24) – Finna

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles!

Finna has been on my radar since it came out back in 2020; it had a funny and clever concept, but it just kept being pushed back on my TBR for whatever reason. I ended up picking it up after hearing praise from one of my creative writing classmates, and although it wasn’t perfect, it delivered on its inventive premise.

Now, tread lightly! This week’s book review contains spoilers for the novella, so if you intend to read Finna, skim at your own risk.

Enjoy this week’s review!

Finna (LitenVerse, #1) – Nino Cipri

Ava and Jules barely make a living working minimum wage at LitenVarld, a Swedish furniture supply giant. Ever since they broke up, they’ve been trying to avoid each other, and with the labyrinthine structure of the store, it’s easy. But the two are thrown together when an old woman goes missing and the manager tells them that LitenVarld is no ordinary store—it’s prone to opening wormholes that lead to alternate dimensions. Ava and Jules must search across the universes to return the old woman to safety at any cost, but their superiors appear less and less like they have their needs in mind…

TW/CW: blood, violence, grief, mental health themes (anxiety and depression), misgendering

My main concern with Finna was that it would only have the premise to hold it up. It’s a fantastic premise! And although it wasn’t a perfect novella, it went far beyond the expectations for its ideas, delivering an anti-capitalist spin on the monstrous multiverse.

Making Finna a novella was, without a doubt, a wise move. It’s got an inviting premise—a not-IKEA store that’s home to a multitude of portals to strange and hellish dimensions—but it’s one that could have easily been stretched out. It partly works because…well, if you’ve ever been inside IKEA, that’s where your mind naturally goes, but Finna mainly succeeded because Cipri knew the limits of the idea. If it had been a full-length novel, I’m sure it would have been interesting to see the other dimensions hidden within the interdimensional labyrinth of LitenVarld, but the plot couldn’t have sustained itself beyond 100 pages. I’ve seen too many novels where the story has been stretched far too thin, so to have an author know the limits of their story—and have an inventive novella to show for it—was incredibly refreshing.

Finna is the perfect story for right now not just because it has a fun concept, but because it truly nails the kind of corporate neglect that runs rampant in workplaces in this day and age. Even against the threat of a multiverse full of monstrous obstacles (including but not limited to man-eating furniture), Ava and Jules are having to tackle threats leagues beyond their pay grade, and their only compensation is gift cards for a pasta restaurant. Their managers openly tell them that they don’t actually care about the old woman who’s gotten lost in the multiverse—they just want Ava and Jules to find an alternate universe replacement for her so that they can keep up appearances. It’s all so blatantly uncaring and corporate—and it’s all realistic. If some massive chain of stores discovered a wormhole in one of their locations, they would absolutely cover it up until it was no longer possible to do so, especially at the expense of the minimum wage employees. I will say that, although you got hit over the head with this even though the commentary was right there already, Finna’s setup made it perfect for the anticapitalist commentary that Cipri explored—corporations only make it look like they care about you when it looks good for them, and even then, the worker is always dispensable. The execution of this corporate setting was, in the end, what made Finna so successful in that regard—it seems like a real, capitalist response to a fictional problem.

That being said, even though Finna works best as a novella, it did fall victim to some of the pitfalls of novella writing. It’s difficult to develop characters in just over 100 pages, and this worked to the detriment of its protagonists, Ava and Jules. We only knew them from the lens of their situations and their breakup; after finishing the novella, all I knew about Ava was that she a) had a failed relationship with Jules, b) had anxiety and depression, and c) hated her job—nothing much about her personality. This is about as deep as we get with her, and for Jules, we get even less, other than the fact that they’re more reckless and cocky, and for that reason, Ava doesn’t like working with them. The plot was compelling and well-executed enough for me to continue reading the story, but it was so plot and theme-driven that the characters were left in the dust.

Such underdeveloped first drafts of characters meant that the emotional impact of Finna was all but deadened. I got the feeling that I was supposed to feel something when Jules sacrificed themself so that Ava could return to her home dimension, but since I knew so little about them, I never felt much. What Jules needed, perhaps more than a handful of base personality traits, was some kind of motivation; it could also be down to how quickly the second half moves, but their quest through the other dimensions gave us no indication of why they would go from reckless to selfless. It could just be the constraints of the novella format, but I’ve read plenty of novellas longer and shorter than Finna that have been able to establish well-rounded characters with believable motivations, so I’m not sure if there’s much of an excuse for this.

All in all, a novella with a funny, inventive premise and sharp anti-capitalist commentary that was dragged down by its underdeveloped characters. 3.5 stars!

Finna is the first novella in the LitenVerse series, followed by Defekt. Nino Cipri is also the author of the short story collection Homesick: Stories and the forthcoming YA novel Dead Girls Don’t Dream. They have also contributed stories to Nonbinary: Memoirs of Gender and Identity, Transcendent: The Year’s Best Transgender Speculative Fiction, and several other anthologies.

Today’s song:

forgot about this song for ages…

That’s it for this week’s Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!