A review of We’ve Got This

3/5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️

I recently finished We’ve Got This: Stories by Disabled Parents edited by Eliza Hull and published by Black Inc. This book was a gift from a friend after we discussed parenting with a disability. I said that I obviously know disabled parents exist and that I hope to be one, but that I can’t recall meeting any and I wish I had. Coincidentally, she heard a review of this book on the radio a few hours later and kindly bought me a copy.

There were several elements that I enjoyed about this book, including the representation of disability, the mix of writers and stories, the easy, accessible reading level, and the quality of the audiobook production. But there were elements of this book that subtracted from my overall rating.

I have found that representations of parents with disabilities is still hard to find. In my experience, googling the term ‘disabled parents’ brings up information for parents of special needs children. This suggests why this book is needed, to show that disabled people can have children, and that they can be excellent parents.

This book was not solely written by Hull either, she wrote several chapters based on interviews, but it was nice to see that she asked some of the parents to contribute by writing their own stories, thus showing that we can be good writers too.

The diversity of people who were featured in this book is also a credit to Hull. There was a range in ability, family structure, and cultural background within the 25 chapters, despite everyone living here in Australia. This diversity enabled me to read about parents who have the same disability and chronic illness as me. Moreover, because of this diverse range in abilities, there are now representations of different abilities in published media, and I hope that every reader can relate to someone in the book like I was able to. But there were a few points in the book that I skipped, simply because that point wasn’t relevant to me and I got bored. Of course, this can easily happen when a book is aiming for a range of perspectives, some will not be relevant. But it was not a reason to banish this book to my ‘did not finish’ list.

Furthermore, this book was fairly well written, and I found it to be an easy read. It is by no means a literary masterpiece, instead it is more accessible to more readers.

I read this book in two forms, print and audio. The audio production quality was good and the narration by Hull was well done. She is not as good as a trained voice actor, but she brought connection to her material that narrators cannot bring. Hull also has an Australian accent, and I enjoyed the change since most of what I listen to is read by American actors. Hull sounds like me and it made me proud of the Australian publication industry.

This book served its purpose, providing me with stories of parents with disabilities, but it was not super practical. Consequently, I won’t refer to it later, meaning I don’t need to keep it.

I would still recommend this book to others, not for its practical applications or literary accomplishments, but because I appreciate the rare representation of disabled parents. The title We’ve Got This points the contents of the book, and it is a credit to all the people involved. Thank you for showing the world that We’ve Got This.

We’ve Got This is available for purchase here

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References

Hull, E., 2022. We've Got This. Melbourne, VIC: Black Inc.

Image credit: https://www.blackincbooks.com.au/books/weve-got

Written by:

Kiara Thomas for Kiara’s Neighbourhood

17 July 2022