Good Kings Bad Kings: A Novel

This was recommended to me by the BPL for a collection of books about disabilities/disabled characters. I thought it looked interesting enough, so I picked it up. But let me warn you, this book can be really heavy at times. So check for trigger warnings (major one I can think of is for sexual assault).
This book definitely has an agenda, but it didn’t annoy me the way I think it could’ve. It discussed ways disabled people are treated by the government and community. It also, and I liked this a lot, talks about disabled people as normal people. Most of the characters are disabled iirc, and there’s a lot of discussion of family and crushes and grievances and other things. I guess it’s a low bar, but it was nice to see multiple disabled characters who are each unique and feel at least somewhat fleshed out. I got sucked into this book the way I haven’t in a while, in the way where you read it and you just completely tune out everything else, which is the main reason for my high rating. The ending was realistic, but it wasn’t very satisfying. Overall though, I still really enjoyed it.

One major complaint about the audiobook. The volume varies WAY TOO MUCH!! Each POV has a different reader, and some of them talk louder than others, or they whisper sometimes and talk loudly other times. I had to keep adjusting my volume, and sometimes I couldn’t hear what they were saying and had to go back. One woman, the one who’s a patient recruiter (her name is Michelle or something??) was the WORST! Her reader was always getting quiet and kind of mumbling. I get that she’s acting, but job #1 is to actually convey the words that are in the book!!!

Rating: 4 stars
but im not disabled so this may change if i read that people actually thought it wasn’t good representation

I first learned about Good Kings Bad Kings, as I was looking for recommendations on Book Riot’s #ReadHarder Challenge. My book club randomly assigned challenges to us this year, and mine was #23 ‘Read a book by a disabled author.’ And what a phenomenal novel to start with. In quick summary, the book is written with a chorus cast; that centers around an assisted living facility on the Southside of Chicago for disabled teenage youth, called ILLC (pronounced “ill-see”). It features 7 unique narrators that range from patients to employees to one recruiter and explores the feelings of being institutionalized and the treatment of those society chooses to push out of sight. This was a heart-break of a novel, that also made you laugh at the teens’ fierce desire for independence, love, sex, belonging, and purpose. It reminds us, that even though we may have different physical or mental abilities, our human desires remain, largely the same. The friendships and romances forged were so real, you both smiled, cheered, and cried at the characters’ every sorrow and success. And its not lost on the reader that the abuse, rape, and death portrayed in the novel, represent a much larger systemic problem. One I believe Good Kings Bad Kings sheds light on. Susan Nussbaum won the PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction and it’s no surprise why. At 24, she was hit by a car that took about a 7-month recovery, and started her life as a wheelchair-user. This transition changed her life, and after much pain, shame, and confusion - she channeled it to become an outspoken advocate, focused on changing the narrative of disabled persons, and pushing important political change. Good Kings Bad Kings is her debut novel, and I’m excited to learn more.