Golem Girl (by Riva Lehrer)

In my last post I referred to an "overly long, overly writery, quite depressing memoir" and this is it! Read for the "book by a disabled author" prompt.  

Many folks in the Goodreads group are choosing books by neurodiverse folks, but I wanted to read something by someone with a physical disability (since I don't really think that neurodiversity = disability). Reva Lehrer, the author, is an artist with spina bifida, and certainly I learned more about the condition and appreciated her unique perspective. I also appreciated her take on the medical memoir - she explicitly says she's not going to go into unnecessary detail about her condition where it isn't relevant to her life story.

Here is more on my criticism: Overly long - especially towards the end, she includes a lot of detail and repetition and there is less of a clear throughline. Overly writery - maybe this is just code for "a lot of words, especially in Yiddish, that I didn't understand." I was grateful for the Kindle translation feature.  Quite depressing - I mean, it's her real life, but damn, this woman has been through a lot and it is a heavy read at times.  But it's also very good! I said that last time too but to reiterate: Riva's voice is unique, her political stances are eye-opening, and her perspective is... ugh I was going to write "inspiring" and that is a terrible choice for a book by a disabled author.  Going to say her perspective is challenging the status quo, in a good way.

I also love the mini-essays on all the included artworks but I'm glad it's presented in epilogue form. Definitely read this one in color so you can fully appreciate the art.