So Lucky
A Novel
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So Lucky
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Narrated by:
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Nicola Griffith
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By:
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Nicola Griffith
About this listen
From the author of Hild, a fierce and urgent autobiographical audiobook about a woman facing down a formidable foe.
So Lucky is the sharp, surprising new audiobook by Nicola Griffith - the profoundly personal and emphatically political story of a confident woman forced to confront an unnerving new reality when in the space of a single week her wife leaves her and she is diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.
Mara Tagarelli is, professionally, the head of a multimillion-dollar AIDS foundation; personally, she is a committed martial artist. But her life has turned inside out like a sock. She can’t rely on family, her body is letting her down, and friends and colleagues are turning away - they treat her like a victim. She needs to break that narrative: build her own community, learn new strengths, and fight. But what do you do when you find out that the story you’ve been told, the story you’ve told yourself, is not true? How can you fight if you can’t trust your body? Who can you rely on if those around you don’t have your best interests at heart, and the systems designed to help do more harm than good? Mara makes a decision and acts, but her actions unleash monsters aimed squarely at the heart of her new community.
This is fiction from the front lines, incandescent and urgent, a narrative juggernaut that rips through sentiment to expose the savagery of America’s treatment of the disabled and chronically ill. But So Lucky also blazes with hope and a ferocious love of self, of the life that becomes possible when we stop believing lies.
©2018 Nicola Griffith (P)2018 Macmillan AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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- Length: 23 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 469
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 422
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Story4 out of 5 stars 425
In seventh-century Britain, small kingdoms are merging, frequently and violently. A new religion is coming ashore; the old gods are struggling, their priests worrying. Hild is the king's youngest niece, and she has a glimmering mind and a natural, noble authority. She will become a fascinating woman and one of the pivotal figures of the Middle Ages: Saint Hilda of Whitby. But now she has only the powerful curiosity of a bright child, a will of adamant, and a way of seeing the world that can seem uncanny, even supernatural, to those around her.
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5 out of 5 stars
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I'd give it 10 stars if I could
- By David on 03-27-14
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Ammonite
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- Length: 13 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 144
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 118
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The girl knows she has a destiny before she even knows her name. She grows up in the wild, in a cave with her mother, but visions of a faraway lake come to her on the spring breeze, and when she hears a traveler speak of Artos, king of Caer Leon, she knows that her future lies at his court. And so, brimming with magic and eager to test her strength, she breaks her covenant with her mother and, with a broken hunting spear and mended armour, rides on a bony gelding to Caer Leon.
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Sooooooo lovely!
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In the holy city of Tova, the winter solstice is usually a time for celebration and renewal, but this year it coincides with a solar eclipse, a rare celestial even proscribed by the Sun Priest as an unbalancing of the world. Meanwhile, a ship launches from a distant city bound for Tova and set to arrive on the solstice. The captain of the ship, Xiala, is a disgraced Teek whose song can calm the waters around her as easily as it can warp a man’s mind. Her ship carries one passenger.
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When Enae's grandmaman passes away, Enae inherits something unexpected: a diplomatic assignment to track down a fugitive who has been missing for over 200 years. No one actually expects Enae to succeed; it's an empty assignment meant to keep hir occupied. But Enae has never had a true purpose—no one ever expected hir to do more than care for grandmaman—so sie is determined to accomplish this task to the best of her ability.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Single themed and not on par with the series
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Hild
- A Novel
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- Narrated by: Pearl Hewitt
- Length: 23 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 469
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 422
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Story4 out of 5 stars 425
In seventh-century Britain, small kingdoms are merging, frequently and violently. A new religion is coming ashore; the old gods are struggling, their priests worrying. Hild is the king's youngest niece, and she has a glimmering mind and a natural, noble authority. She will become a fascinating woman and one of the pivotal figures of the Middle Ages: Saint Hilda of Whitby. But now she has only the powerful curiosity of a bright child, a will of adamant, and a way of seeing the world that can seem uncanny, even supernatural, to those around her.
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5 out of 5 stars
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I'd give it 10 stars if I could
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- Length: 13 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 144
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 118
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 119
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5 out of 5 stars
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Spear
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- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 127
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 109
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 109
The girl knows she has a destiny before she even knows her name. She grows up in the wild, in a cave with her mother, but visions of a faraway lake come to her on the spring breeze, and when she hears a traveler speak of Artos, king of Caer Leon, she knows that her future lies at his court. And so, brimming with magic and eager to test her strength, she breaks her covenant with her mother and, with a broken hunting spear and mended armour, rides on a bony gelding to Caer Leon.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Sooooooo lovely!
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- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,704
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,530
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,520
In the holy city of Tova, the winter solstice is usually a time for celebration and renewal, but this year it coincides with a solar eclipse, a rare celestial even proscribed by the Sun Priest as an unbalancing of the world. Meanwhile, a ship launches from a distant city bound for Tova and set to arrive on the solstice. The captain of the ship, Xiala, is a disgraced Teek whose song can calm the waters around her as easily as it can warp a man’s mind. Her ship carries one passenger.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Tesla Crane, one of the richest women in the world, is on her honeymoon on an interplanetary space liner, cruising between Earth and Mars. She’s traveling incognito and is reveling in her anonymity. Then someone is murdered and her husband is named as the prime suspect. To save him from the frame-up, Tesla will risk exposure and face demons from her past. Even though doing so might make her the next victim.
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4 out of 5 stars
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3 out of 5 stars
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Single themed and not on par with the series
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"That book. It was about two women, and they fell in love with each other." And then Lily asked the question that had taken root in her, that was even now unfurling its leaves and demanding to be shown the sun: "Have you ever heard of such a thing?" Seventeen-year-old Lily Hu can't remember exactly when the question took root, but the answer was in full bloom the moment she and Kathleen Miller walked under the flashing neon sign of a lesbian bar called the Telegraph Club. America in 1954 is not a safe place for two girls to fall in love, especially not in Chinatown.
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Critiquing queer books
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The person you hire when the heroes fail
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Avery is an exceptional child. Everything he does is precise, from the way he washes his face in the morning to the way he completes his homework - without complaint, without fuss, without prompt. Zib is also an exceptional child, because all children are, in their own way. But where everything Avery does and is can be measured, nothing Zib does can possibly be predicted, except for the fact that she can always be relied upon to be unpredictable. They live on the same street. They live in different worlds.
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Intriguing story! I recommend!
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As Melissa Bond raises her infant daughter and a special-needs one-year-old son, she suffers from unbearable insomnia, sleeping an hour or less each night. She loses her job as a journalist (a casualty of the 2008 recession), and her relationship with her husband grows distant. Her doctor casually prescribes benzodiazepines—a family of drugs that includes Xanax, Valium, Klonopin, Ativan—and increases her dosage regularly.
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Just After Sunset - call it dusk, call it twilight, it's a time when human intercourse takes on an unnatural cast, when nothing is quite as it appears, when the imagination begins to reach for shadows as they dissipate to darkness and living daylight can be scared right out of you. It's the perfect time for Stephen King.
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King scores another coup
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Rumors begin to spread of a species of hyperintelligent, dangerous octopus that may have developed its own language and culture. Marine biologist Dr. Ha Nguyen, who has spent her life researching cephalopod intelligence, will do anything for the chance to study them. The transnational tech corporation DIANIMA has sealed the remote Con Dao Archipelago, where the octopuses were discovered, off from the world. Dr. Nguyen joins DIANIMA’s team on the islands: a battle-scarred security agent and the world’s first android.
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5 out of 5 stars
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In 1345, China lies under harsh Mongol rule. For the starving peasants of the Central Plains, greatness is something found only in stories. When the Zhu family’s eighth-born son, Zhu Chongba, is given a fate of greatness, everyone is mystified as to how it will come to pass. The fate of nothingness received by the family’s clever and capable second daughter, on the other hand, is only as expected.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Almost great.
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Remote Control
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 762
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 679
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 677
The day Fatima forgot her name, Death paid a visit. From hereon in she would be known as Sankofa - a name that meant nothing to anyone but her, the only tie to her family and her past. Her touch is death, and with a glance a town can fall. And she walks - alone, except for her fox companion - searching for the object that came from the sky and gave itself to her when the meteors fell and when she was yet unchanged; searching for answers.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Afrofuturist Sci/Fantasy Fairytale
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 2,364
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Story4 out of 5 stars 2,165
When you listen to Lily and the Octopus, you will be taken on an unforgettable ride. The magic of this novel is in the listening, and we don't want to spoil it by giving away too many details. We can tell you that this is a story about that special someone: the one you trust, the one you can't live without. For Ted Flask, that someone special is his aging companion, Lily, who happens to be a dog.
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3 out of 5 stars
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OMG WHY!!???!??? last hour redeemed the first 7
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Light from Uncommon Stars
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Shizuka Satomi made a deal with the devil: To escape damnation, she must entice seven other violin prodigies to trade their souls for success. She has already delivered six. When Katrina Nguyen, a young transgender runaway, catches Shizuka's ear with her wild talent, Shizuka can almost feel the curse lifting. She's found her final candidate. But in a donut shop off a bustling highway in the San Gabriel Valley, Shizuka meets Lan Tran, retired starship captain, interstellar refugee, and mother of four.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Awesome with a few hitches.
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- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 681
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 603
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 602
In 1915, The Birth of a Nation casts a spell across America, swelling the Klan's ranks and drinking deep from the darkest thoughts of white folk. All across the nation they ride, spreading fear and violence among the vulnerable. They plan to bring hell to Earth. But even Ku Kluxes can die.
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5 out of 5 stars
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The best story from a master mythmaker
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The Opposite of Everyone
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- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,997
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,847
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,840
A fiercely independent divorce lawyer learns the power of family and connection when she receives a cryptic message from her estranged mother in this bittersweet, witty novel from the nationally best-selling author of Someone Else's Love Story and Gods in Alabama - an emotionally resonant tale about the endurance of love and the power of stories to shape and transform our lives.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Goddess of destruction and rebirth
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What listeners say about So Lucky
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Marcos Ibarguen
- 07-07-18
Painfully autobiographical... and GOOD
First off, this is really not a novel, more like a novella. It follows a very active, martial-arts-ass-kicking lesbian woman through her diagnosis of multiple sclerosis, her divorce, her completely unfair firing from her job as a non-profit director, her effort to start a new non-profit to help “cripples” like her, AND a scary subplot where she discovers MS victims are being further victimized by a group of serial torturer/robber/killers. In other words, it’s Nicola Griffith’s own story, with a few embellishments. It’s kind of a lot to pack into a very short book, and I can’t claim to have loved it as I have loved most of her other work, but I have to say that the personal touch she applies is quite moving. In particular, her description of the process a person in a wheelchair goes thru in the TSA line – so dehumanizing, so WRONG – really got to me. I mean, even if it’s “only” old age and not a monster like MS, all of us eventually lose the physical gifts of youth, right? Griffith appears to have written this as a bit of therapy to deal with her own MS, but I think it works for all readers willing to give it a try, and it does have a little bit of an uplifting component in terms of the protagonist regaining her feistiness in the end… I hope Griffith’s health, and interest, allows her to write some more – preferably another “Slow River”, but really anything. Her small but powerful body of work in what might be narrowly termed “lesbian fiction” has been eye-opening and amazing to me. And by the way, she's a pretty damn good reader too!!!
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- David A Fouchey
- 09-12-19
MS is the disease my mother succumbed to this rings so true
I’ve been a fan of Nicola’s work for some time but never thought she would tackle this subject. Boy am I ever glad she did. It was a visceral telling of the very things my mum went through and helped me understand it better. I am also glad she narrated it herself as you could feel the emotions those disease stirs up in people. Thank you so much for writing this Nicola I look forward you your next book as always. My best to you. Dave Fouchey.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Kellyoyo
- 10-26-18
Author’s own voice is perfect
Nicola Griffith narrates her own novel in this searing performance. I was gripped. It couldn’t be more perfect.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Anne
- 07-15-18
Grim with a good ending
Terrific narration, grim but compelling mindset and experiences, and worth sticking with to the satisfying end. I suspect it is a very realistic portrayal of the awfulness of the first year or so of a chronic illness, it's ugly realities, and how it wrecks your head.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Sheltopia
- 05-27-18
Breathless and beautiful, wonderful narration
Smart. Scintillating. Scathing. Part thriller. Part horror. And all #CripLit.
Wonderfully narrated by the author. A short but high impact listen. A beautiful way with words. Every sentence sharp.
Listen for writers: How to have an eclectic oeuvre, not be pigeonholed into genre or style. I look forward to and enjoy Griffith's works, but she always offers something new.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Margaret Snow
- 09-26-20
Wow. Book great. Performance wonderful
Wow. What a book. So sorry that Nicola is experiencing a pretty brutal version of MS, but so glad that she has shared a of what it felt like at the onset.
Her website states: Writer. Queer Cripple with a PhD. Seattle and Leeds.
I love Nicola Griffith's voice. The narration is well done. It is a bit mind altering to hear the formal British accent because I started reading her books with The Blue Place and Aud Torvigen. I had her fixed in the southeast US.
The book is described as an autobiographical novel.
It is a high energy, page turner. Mara, the protagonist moves quickly from a martial arts proficient, director of a large charity, to unemployed, and hospitalized with MS. Griffith successfully describes a horrible sense of vertigo and total upheaval that seems very real.
She provides a glimpse into the comparatively wonderful patient centered world of AIDS advocacy, and the contrasts that with her initial experience with MS support groups.
She conveys the frustration and uncertainty that seem to shroud everything about the MS experience from the causes of flareups to the "exact mechanism of action unknown" of the disease modifying drugs available.
Griffith portrays Mara going through a terrifying process of suddenly being thrust into a disabled, unreliable body, and waking to the demoralizing situation of being a disabled person in the US. I hope that her 1990's representation is improved in 2020, but don't have much faith that it has. She shows us how if feels to be treated like a piece of luggage by the wheelchair porters and security agents at an airport, and like a patient/specimen at an advocacy organization conference.
Mara struggles to regain her sense of self while MS exacerbations, and drug side effects impair her ability to move or think. She describes the necessarily self centered focus while Mara determines whether she can live with this disability.
The side story is compelling and educating about how much autonomy persons with disability are forced to give away in so many areas of their lives, in part by the impairments of the disease and in part by the realities of the healthcare systems, and other systems within which they must work to get the services required.
In the end, it is nice to get a glimpse of Mara coming out on the other side of the trauma that was her first year as a disabled, person, to see her finding her way, and to see society giving her some validation of her worth, despite her disability.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- @MM_Gadget_Girl
- 08-18-20
The plight is there for many...
Well written, well read. Many people do not think to look at things from someone else's perspective. This book will help do just that. I hope many will read it and just take that one thing away... There is an epiphany there in the reading for each of us on either side - to say more may spoil the book..This is dégivrer worth listening to.
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