{"id":1928,"date":"2015-12-07T09:00:22","date_gmt":"2015-12-07T14:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/?p=1928"},"modified":"2021-08-22T13:19:56","modified_gmt":"2021-08-22T13:19:56","slug":"review-she-is-not-invisible-by-marcus-sedgwick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/2015\/12\/07\/review-she-is-not-invisible-by-marcus-sedgwick\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: She Is Not Invisible<\/i> by Marcus Sedgwick"},"content":{"rendered":"

I started She Is Not Invisible<\/a><\/em> with great trepidation. Before this, I\u2019d never read a blind character who is believable, or painless to read about. So, I was pleased to see that Marcus Sedgwick went for a vastly different approach. Although I don\u2019t necessarily identify with Laureth, even though she is also blind, I can see how other blind readers would. I know for a fact that the author did extensive research before writing the book, including spending a lot of time with blind students.<\/p>\n

A number of things did bother me about Laureth\u2019s character, however. The biggest is that she\u2019s surprisingly dependent. She still holds her kid brother\u2019s hand for him to guide her, for example, and she seems unable to walk unaided. In one scene, Laureth is in an airport and someone has just called her forward. The following happens.<\/p>\n

\u2018You know why,\u2019 I said, which gave me the task of walking the few paces up to the desk by myself.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"Cover<\/a><\/center><\/div>Personally, this felt unrealistic. Laureth knew she was first in the queue and could hear the voice of the person at the desk. Even without the use of a cane, there isn\u2019t really a reason why walking a few paces should be challenging. I don\u2019t feel like this behaviour is representative of most blind teenagers. Laureth is sixteen and has been blind from birth, which is why I found this particularly hard to believe. Still, as people reach independence at very different stages, it is possible.<\/p>\n

Despite that, I enjoyed the story a lot. Laureth\u2019s father is a famous writer who has gone missing; she believes he may be in danger, starting a chain of events including a journey from London to New York. Laureth has an engaging voice and the characters are lively, making me want to keep reading. I also loved the idea of coincidence, which was one of the best themes in the book. Throughout, we see snippets of Laureth\u2019s father\u2019s notes, which hint at something powerful. However, in the end it didn\u2019t deliver. Without spoiling it, I\u2019ll just say I found it anticlimactic and a total disappointment considering I’d enjoyed the book up until that point. Whether I identified with Laureth as a blind person or not, the story was engaging and extremely entertaining (if somewhat unbelievable), making that ending a big letdown.<\/p>\n

If you’re interested in disabled characters in lit, this book is worth a read. I’m glad I read the book despite my criticism of the ending and Laureth\u2019s lack of independence, because it\u2019s still one of the less cringey portrayals of a blind character.<\/p>\n

I applaud Sedgwick for all the research he\u2019s done\u2014he clearly made more effort than most to portray a blind protagonist, such as by slipping in small details about technology that blind people use. He especially focuses on the iPhone, even going as far as to describe specific gestures that blind people use with VoiceOver.<\/p>\n

I am interested in the group of people he interviewed. I know Sedgwick spent a lot of time at a school for the blind, yet I don\u2019t know whether he interviewed students in a mainstream environment. This is something to consider when thinking about Laureth\u2019s character. Most blind students in mainstream schools would not back away from using a cane\u2014especially students like Laureth, who have no useful vision\u2014quite simply because they have to in order to navigate that such large environments. By contrast, blind schools often let students walk around without a cane since the school is so small. When I attended one, the school went as far as to discourage students from using their cane inside, though this policy may be different now.<\/p>\n

I wonder about the group Sedgwick interviewed in particular because Laureth says she was bullied when she was in a mainstream school, and implies that this isn\u2019t an issue now she\u2019s at a school for the blind. Whilst bullying is an experience that unfortunately many young disabled people face, I felt that the book contained an anti-mainstream subtext that made me a little uncomfortable. Having said that, I’m almost certain the author did this without even knowing it. I imagine this oversight is because he might not have talked to a more varied cross-section of the blind student population, who could have shared very different experiences with him.<\/p>\n

Although Laureth didn\u2019t represent me as a blind person, it doesn\u2019t mean she was a badly written character. As within all groups of society, there are all kinds of blind people. Just because I didn\u2019t identify with Laureth because of her helplessness doesn’t mean Sedgwick has failed. In fact, I think he achieved more than many other authors. He didn\u2019t feed off tropes and stereotypes; instead, he met with many young blind people and found out about their lives. This was, in my opinion, the book\u2019s strongest feature.<\/p>\n

I would like to thank Marcus Sedgwick for doing such wonderful research and meeting with young blind people. Is Laureth perfect? No. I would like to see a strong, more independent blind teenager in another book. However, I think a lot of authors could learn from his example by talking to the group they are going to write about.<\/p>\n

I hope that, as this book was released by a major publisher, others will consider coming forward and embracing diversity in literature as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Although Laureth didn\u2019t represent me as a blind person, Sedgwick didn\u2019t feed off tropes and stereotypes; instead, he met with many young blind people and found out about their lives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":1930,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_generate-full-width-content":"","kt_blocks_editor_width":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[168,171],"genre":[5],"age_category":[8],"disability":[68],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1928"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1928"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1928\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7253,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1928\/revisions\/7253"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1928"},{"taxonomy":"genre","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/genre?post=1928"},{"taxonomy":"age_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/age_category?post=1928"},{"taxonomy":"disability","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/disability?post=1928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}