Well, that went… badly

I got a free-to-review queer ebook, set in a summer camp for disabled kids. (The MC and LI were staff, not kids.)

I had to nope-out by halfway, after pervasive, persistent ableism.

(Oh, and one reference to the Gestapo, when the parents were seeing their disabled kids off. I guess the author doesn’t know – or doesn’t care – that the Nazis used disabled kids as their test subjects for the Final Solution. Thousands of them.)

Please, writers. Disabled and neurodivergent people don’t need you to labour every other page how much of an inconvenience we are, how ‘quirky’ our mannerisms are, how emotionally exhausting we are, how disgusting our bodily functions, how annoying our routines and dietary and sensory needs are. How we’re sucking the life from our families like vampires.

You never have to tell us. You never let us forget.

(No, I’m not going to name-drop the author or the book. I just need to vent.)

EDIT: I will add that this wasn’t just a ‘ugh, won’t read any more’ situation. This book gave me a severe anxiety spiral requiring a long hot bath with a Lush bath bomb, a valium, and I’ve been sitting here rocking most of the day, something I generally only do when my anxiety is most severe. I very, very rarely leave a book unfinished, but this was a ‘for my own safety’ situation. Ableism is toxic, y’all. Get a sensitivity reader. Not a professional, not a family member, but an actual disabled person who feels comfortable enough to call out your bullshit.

EDIT 2: The author contacted me and was really respectful and thankful for my review, so, guys, THAT IS HOW YOU DO IT when a marginalised person has genuine concrit of your thing, when you have asked for an-honest-review-for-free-book. Even if you don’t 100% agree with the reviewer, it costs you nothing to respect the feedback and the position of the reviewer as an expert in their own experience.

YIVO Announces Discovery of 170,000 Lost Jewish Documents Thought to Have Been Destroyed During the Holocaust | YIVO Institute for Jewish Research | The Edward Blank YIVO Vilna Collections Project

librariansofshield:

The new discovery is of particular note for its wealth of manuscripts, precious religious writings—in Hebrew and Yiddish—record books of shuls and yeshivas; mystical writings, and more. Additionally, the collection contains post-war and wartime materials, such as poetry written while in the Vilna Ghetto by Abraham Sutzkever. All other materials that have previously been found from this time period in Eastern Europe precede the outbreak of WWII.

YIVO Announces Discovery of 170,000 Lost Jewish Documents Thought to Have Been Destroyed During the Holocaust | YIVO Institute for Jewish Research | The Edward Blank YIVO Vilna Collections Project

s-s-j-blog:

laughlikesomethingbroken:

nanopup:

nanopup:

this years holocaust remembrance day is very important, given the current political climate. take today to remember the horrifying acts committed against jewish and romani people. take today to recognize the beginning of those same acts forming against PoC in america today. take today to resist those in power however you see fit, and after today, dont stop resisting. i am a jew still personally affected by the holocaust even 2 generations later. every jew is affected by the shoah, but there is a special pain to know what happened to your own family. or worse, not knowing what happened to the unknown people you see in old family photographs. we as a people will never be the same. remember the holocaust today. dont let this happen again.

non-jews are absolutely allowed/encouraged to reblog this

i also want to remind all the nonjews that holocaust rembrance day (today, jan 27) is NOT the same as yom hashoah (april 23), and that yom hashoah is a day SPECIFICALLY to remember the jewish dead, so when we’re grieving in april don’t try to tell us about the roma who died. we know. We remember them today. They have their own day, though i’m not sure when it is, and we have a right to mourn our dead, just as they have a right to mourn theirs.

Our day for mourning is August 2nd, Roma Remembrance Day. But I also want to highlight Rromani Resistance Day that happens on May 16, which honors the folks who resisted and fought the nazis that wanted to exterminate them, by mobilizing all those who can to fight for change. Please, spread our dates, we need change, and now more than ever with how the world is going