There’s A New Problem With Disability Romances
When I started writing novels with disabled characters twenty years ago it was mainly because I ran out of books to read. I couldn’t find enough of the kind of books I wanted so I started creating my own.
As I was scrolling Amazon last night I realized there’s quite a few romance novels with disabled characters, particularly disabled heroes. In a few minutes I was able to download samples of ten books.
The problem has shifted a bit. No longer is it that there aren’t books with disabled characters, the problem now is that most of them are terrible.
I’m so sorry to the authors. As an author myself I don’t like to criticize others because I think it’s a potential conflict of interest.
But this is an important critique to bring up because many of these books are packed with abelism.
There are two types of disability themed books I usually see. One is the highbrow literary masterpiece where the author is praised to the heavens for their searing depiction of disability. These authors know nothing about disability and actually are depicting a tired old stereotype that has no basis in reality but the readers don’t know that because as societies we pay so little attention to disabled experiences. The most recent of these that I know of is A Little Life and the author proudly declared doing no research at all into the amputee experience.
The other type is the light romance novels where the hero is invariably bitter, angry about his disability, feels unworthy of love, “half a man.”
I so darn sick of seeing this trope that I had to write a post about it.
There are some tropes within a trope, I’ve realized. The “wounded hero” trope with disabled heroes has within it the bitter man feeling unworthy of love because of a broken body and there’s also the meetcute where the heroine doesn’t realize the hero is disabled when they first meet (remarkably common!)
Romance novels aren’t meant to be realistic but I think it’s a problem that the depiction of disabled characters is 90% of the time based in assumptions that abled people make about what a disabled life is like. That’s, quite frankly, dangerous to actual disabled people.
It’s hard to find good romance novels with disabled characters because the reviews are often a pack of five stars from people who are super impressed that someone wrote a love story with a disabled person. So brave. So unique. Ugh.
Most of the time now I depend on recommendations from friends I trust before I give a disability-themed book a chance.
Here are a few that are actually good:
