UNBROKEN: 13 STORIES STARRING DISABLED TEENS
by Marieke Nijkamp
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publication Date: September 18, 2018
From Goodreads:
A YA Anthology of short stories featuring disabled teens, written by #OwnVoices disabled authors. The stories reflect a range of genres and disabilities; contributors include bestselling authors Kody Keplinger and Francisco X. Stork, as well as newcomers Fox Benwell, Keah Brown, and more.
I was provided with a copy of Unbroken by the good people at Farrar, Straus and Giroux and Raincoast Books in exchange for a fair and honest review.
As I said in my First Impression Friday post regarding this book, it had been a long time since I read an anthology due to my mixed feelings over them. The stories I love are never long enough, but the ones I don’t love don’t go on forever.
The stories for this anthology were, for the most part, well-selected. And I don’t mean just because they all starred a teen with a disability. They did, but it was more than that.
There was a part of me that feared each story would be about the disabled teen’s disability. ‘Look at how blind Mary is.’ Those aren’t the kinds of stories I want to read, and they don’t do justice to anyone with any kind of disability.
Instead, what I got was a series of stories that just happened to have disabled characters. Stories that happened on another planet with alien invaders attacking. Stories of a troupe preparing to stage a play. Stories of magical curses and exorcisms. Stories of love, and loss.
Beyond the few stories I couldn’t really get into, my only issue with this book had to do with endings.
A few of the stories seemed to be building toward something really great, and then they would just end. A few times I had to stop and make sure a few pages didn’t get stuck together! It seemed to me like maybe a few of these stories were just a piece of something bigger, but there wasn’t any explanation of that kind, so I can’t be sure.
A few of the stories I loved:
Britt and the Bike God
I usually don’t dig on stories that are just a romance, but this one really grew on me. This story was early on and it was the one that made me realize it wasn’t about to be stories about disabilities, but about people.
One, Two, Three
Loved this one. Made me go through the entire spectrum of emotions. Laughter, hope, sadness, redemption. Great, great stuff.
A Play in Many Parts
Mixed feelings on this one. I really liked the story, but the MC was pretty unlikable. The format was very different as well, which was a bit jarring, but refreshing at the same time.
