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Disfigured: On Fairy Tales, Disability, and Making Space by Amanda Leduc is a book I’ve been excited to pick up since it first popped up on my radar - no doubt thanks to a bookstagram rec. I’m a child of the 90s, and like Leduc, many of my formative years were shaped by Disney’s stories of beautiful princesses, terrible beasts, and mermaids who gave up their gifts in order to walk on land. It wasn’t until adulthood that I discovered and was horrified by the “real” stories by Andersen and the Brothers Grimm, stories that were gruesome and just as troubling as their idealized counterparts. As an English major and lifelong reader, I’ve come across so many of the tales and tropes referenced by Leduc, which serve as a reminder of how pervasive and all encompassing ableism is. We can learn so much about ourselves from the stories we told - and continue to tell. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ While I found myself frustrated by the repetitive nature of her storytelling, I loved examining familiar stories through a different lens, I loved learning about ways in which fairy tales were once subversive, and I loved the moments in which Leduc shared her own experiences with disability. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Listening to this audiobook was a reminder that we can and should be critical of the things we consume, that we can enjoy things and also be critical of them, that the world would be a better place if we stopped to consider what message it sends when our villains are scarred and our heroes tireless, when princesses always walk down the aisle, when disability is a curse, or a symbol, or something to be fixed. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ TW: depression, suicidal ideation ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ID: A kindle displaying the ebook cover of Disfigured sits on a white shelf. My hand is reaching out to touch it. via Instagram https://instagr.am/p/CWlRaJgLTMM/