Does anyone know of a fiction book with a disabled, physical or mental, protagonist? Something that will make the soul feel something, though I am hoping for something not wildly depressing. Everything I find when searching seems to either bring up a memoir (valid but not what I want right now), non-fiction, or is a condition of some side character that is never really central to the story.
by Proteus8489
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A Farewell to Arms. It should be called A Farewell to Legs.
Out on a Limb by Hannah Bonam-Young
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine
Lila and Hadley
The very first thing that came to mind was A Little Life – which is great but also incredibly depressing at times.
Out of My Mind by Sharon M Draper
Loving April by Melvin Burgess
Misery has physical with one character and mental with the other
the lincoln rhyme series by jeffery deaver.
If you like reading thrillers you could try The Coffin Dancer by Jeffery Deaver. It features the quadriplegic private detective Lincoln Rhyme.
Six of Crows
Sorrow and Bliss has a main character with an unspecified mental illness
Any of the Cormoran Strike books by Robert Galbraith (aka JK Rowling)
Surprised Flowers for Algernon hasn’t been mentioned yet!
I just recommended this book on another post. Out of my Mind by Sharon Draper
Miles Vorkosigan is born wizened with major impairments and mistreated as mutant freak on a planet of tall warrior men. It’s a sf series and he’s brilliant!
The narrator in I Know This Much is True by Wally Lamb has a twin brother with schizophrenia and a lot of the book is him trying to support his brother. It’s been a while since I read it but I remember really liking it.
Also Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus by Dusti Bowling
Check out Rosemary Sutcliff’s amazing books (historical fiction): [https://rosemarysutcliff.net/2018/03/17/eminent-british-writer-rosemary-sutcliff-was-herself-severely-physically-disabled-characters-with-physical-disabilities-peopled-many-of-her-books-of-historical-fiction-and-for-children/](https://rosemarysutcliff.net/2018/03/17/eminent-british-writer-rosemary-sutcliff-was-herself-severely-physically-disabled-characters-with-physical-disabilities-peopled-many-of-her-books-of-historical-fiction-and-for-children/)
She herself was disabled and included disabled characters in most of her work. Her writing is exquisite and soul-stirring (*The Eagle of the Ninth* is her best work in my opinion). See r/Rosemary_Sutcliff for more info.
Bellevue Square. Not depressing at all
“In This Sign” by Joanne Greenberg (the author of “I Never Promised you a Rose Garden”). It’s about a Deaf couple, Janice and Abel Ryder, and their life from the 1930s to the 1960s. It was made into a TV movie, “Love Is Never Silent.”
I haven’t read it yet, but Sara Nović’s book “True Biz” came out recently, and it also has Deaf protagonists.
There’s also “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter,” by Carson McCullers. One of the main characters is John Singer, a Deaf man.
“The Witch Collector” (Charissa Weeks) is the first book in a romantasy series with a female protagonist who is mute and uses sign language. She is quite the badass sexy leading lady.
“The Pleasure of My Company” (Steve Martin) has a protagonist with OCD and it is a warm, funny book.
There’s a series I read called The Tales of Rowan Hood where the protagonist steps in a bear trap in book two and has a weak leg for the rest of the series, but I can’t actually remember how much that disability actually plays into the story
Invisible Monster by Chuck Palahniuk – Model gets disfigured when she’s shot while out driving. She is rendered mute since she loses her lower jaw.
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
The Warrior’s Apprentice by Lois McMaster Bujold and the following books in the series (if you like it.) As a result of pre-natal damage, Miles Vorkosigan is very short (4’?) and has very brittle bones, but he’s ferociously smart. He wants to succeed in a militaristic world.
The Warrior’s Apprentice by Lois McMaster Bujold
Miles Vorkosigan is 4’10” with chronic pain and unusually breakable bones, and that’s after benefitting from what he describes as an inquisition worth of medical treatment.
The gargoyle by Andrew Davidson, a burn victim learns to like himself. Some warnings, sex (nothing graphic more as to past experiences and his job as a porn maker) drug use, suicide and graphic description of burns