The Pretty One

Subtitled "On Life, Pop Culture, Disability, and Other Reasons to Fall in Love with Me," Brown's debut is a collection of twelve personal essays by the journalist and creator of the viral #DisabledAndCute hashtag. Born with cerebral palsy, Brown writes about growing up Black and disabled in western New York, about pain and medical dismissal, about pop culture's narrow images of disability, about dating, family, and her non-disabled identical twin — the sister friends once called "the pretty one." The essays move from self-hatred learned early to a deliberately joyful self-acceptance, arguing that disabled people need not be pitied, cured, or treated as inspiration in order to be seen whole. It became a widely taught, widely quoted entry point into Black disability writing.

Author: Keah Brown · Original publisher: Atria Books (New York), 2019