Disabled or Neurodivergent Author: Recommendations for Adult Summer Reading 2025Like this list

20 items

• Give Me a Sign

  Sortino, Anna,

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  Lilah, a teen who uses hearing aids, is excited to find community at a summer camp for Deaf and Blind people. When a fellow counselor offers to help her brush up on ASL, she quickly finds herself falling for him.

• Where You See Yourself

  Forrest, Claire (Young adult author),

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  Having her heart set on a college in NYC with a major in Mass Media & Society, disabled high school senior Effie learns that sometimes growing up means being open to a world of possibilities you never even dreamed of.

• The Broposal

  Reyes, Sonora,

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  Best friends Alejandro and Kenny fake an engagement to secure Han a green card, but as their wedding date approaches and their undeniable chemistry intensifies, the line between pretense and reality begins to blur.

• The Undetectables

  Smyth, Courtney,

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  A detective agency run by three witches and a ghost in a cat costume, are hired to investigate a series of murders perpetrated by the Whistler, a magical serial killer whose hypnotic whistling causes his victims to chew their own tongues off.

• True Biz

  a Novel

  Novic, Sara, 1987-

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  Taking readers into a residential school for the deaf, this coming-of-age novel follows three people; a rebellious transfer student, the school’s golden boy and the headmistress, as they each deal with personal and political crises.

• Out on a Limb

  a Novel

  Bonam-Young, Hannah,

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  Follow Win as a one-night stand with the incredibly charming Bo leads to an unexpected pregnancy, and they decide to get to know each other as friends while embarking on this parenting journey, soon discovers life rarely goes according to plan.

• Floppy

  Tales of a Genetic Freak of Nature at the End of the World : a Disjointed Memoir

  Graybeal, Alyssa, 1982-

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  In this playful story of falling down, getting back up again, and realizing you should have gone to the hospital sooner, Alyssa explores the emotional landscape of life with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome while dealing with chronic pain.

• Sipping Dom Pérignon Through a Straw

  Reimagining Success as a Disabled Achiever

  Ndopu, Eddie,

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  A global humanitarian, born with spinal muscular atrophy, a degenerative disease affecting mobility, shares his remarkable journey and reminds us of our own capacity for resilience in the face of ableism.

• Jellyfish Have No Ears

  a Novel

  Rosenfeld, Adèle, 1986-

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  In a novel about the flaws of language, the fear of silence and the power of imagination, a woman who's almost completely deaf must decide whether she’s willing to get an implant at the cost of her natural hearing.

• Get a Life, Chloe Brown

  a Novel

  Hibbert, Talia,

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  Emerging from a life-threatening illness, a fiercely organized but unfulfilled computer geek recruits a mysterious artist to help her establish meaning in her life, before finding herself engaged in reckless but thrilling activities.

• The Country of the Blind

  a Memoir at the End of Sight

  Leland, Andrew,

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  Retinitis pigmentosa caused Leland to live his first few decades being sighted, but through the years, he gradually lost his sight. Now, he documents his transition from sighted to blindness, as he becomes immersed in a new culture.

• Head Above Water

  Reflections on Illness

  Shammarī, Shahd,

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  Charting her journey with raw honesty, a chronically ill woman imparts profound wisdom as she explores disability, displacement, and belonging at the intersection of culture, gender, and race.

• Las Madres

  a Novel

  Santiago, Esmeralda,

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  Returning home to Puerto Rico, Luz hopes to recover the memories she lost 40 years ago in an accident that killed her parents and left her with a traumatic brain injury and physical and mental disabilities.

• Cursebreakers

  a Novel

  Nakamura, Madeleine,

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  A professor of magic must survive his own failing mental health and a tenuous partnership with a hotheaded, neurodivergent soldier in order to save the city from a spreading curse.

• Touch the Future

  a Manifesto in Essays

  Clark, John Lee, 1978-

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  Clark’s collection of essays on his experiences within the DeafBlind community advocates for a movement that embraces tactile language and physical connection while interrogating both historical and contemporary challenges.

• Nervous

  Essays on Heritage and Healing

  Soriano, Jen,

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  A Filipinx-American writer and daughter of a neurosurgeon explores her chronic pain and mental health struggles, boldly navigating subjects related to public health, the human body, disability, neurodiversity, and genderqueer bodies of color.

• The Secret Summer Promise

  Brown, Keah,

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  After spending her last summer recovering from surgery for her cerebral palsy, aspiring artist Andrea is determined to make this summer the best one yet, but things grow complicated when she realizes that she's in love with her best friend.

• How to Get a Life in Ten Dates

  a Novel

  Howe, Jenny L.,

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  Haleigh, a young woman with anxiety who's fed up with dating challenges her family and friends to set her up on ten dates, but she gets more than she bargained for when her best friend, who has OCD, adds himself to the roster.

• Joined at the Joints

  Eller, Marissa,

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  Ivy prefers to stay home and bake, but when she meets a cute boy who shares her juvenile rheumatoid arthritis diagnosis, she’ll have to choose between a first romance and keeping her walls up.

• Adult Summer Reading 2025

  View on bpl.org

  Visit our webpage to learn more about the Adult Summer Reading Program, which runs from June 1 to August 31.