Category: Cognitive disability

Rainbow Briefs

By Kira Harp

Have you ever looked at a picture, perhaps a photo of two guys in a tight hug, or two girls holding hands, and wondered, What happened before that moment? What will they do next?

These fifteen stories were inspired by images from the Young Adult LGBT Books Group. In these pages you’ll find LGBTQ teenagers living their lives – experiencing first encounters and long relationships, coming out, staying closeted, questioning, loving, having adventures, dealing with family, with prejudice, with magic. Author Kira Harp provides this collection of Young Adult romantic, fantasy, and contemporary short stories.

Genre: YA short stories – contemporary, paranormal, fantasy

Representation:
Gender:
Cis girls: Adara, Candice, Hayley, Bri, Nicola, Kim
Cis boys: Julio, Mark, Toren, Baylor, Vic, Justin, Colby, Jerrod, Tommy, Con, Nick, Zeke, Spencer, Mitch, Adam, Joe, Lance
Trans girls: Lisa
Trans boys: Sam

Sexuality:
Gay: Julio, Mark, Sam, Toren, Baylor, Vic, Justin, Con, Nick, Zeke, Spencer, Mitch, Adam, Joe, Lance
Lesbian: Adara, Candice, Hayley, Bri, Nicola, Kim
Bisexual: Jerrod
Heterosexual: Lisa
Questioning: Colby

Romantic Orientation:
Homoromantic: Julio, Mark, Adara, Candice, Sam, Toren, Baylor, Hayley, Bri, Vic, Justin, Nicola, Kim, Con, Nick, Zeke, Spencer, Mitch, Adam, Joe, Lance
Biromantic: Jerrod:
Heteroromantic: Lisa
Poly Romantic: Spencer, Mitch, Adam

Race/Ethnicity:
White: Mark, Adara, Candice, Hayley, Bri, Vic, Justin, Con, Nick, Zeke, Lisa, Joe, Lance
Latinx: Julio

Disability:
Mark – club foot
Tommy – Down’s Syndrome

Location: various

Trigger Warnings: homophobia/homomisa, grieving, depression, kidnapping/imprisonment

Additional Notes: free ebook on many sites

Ending: all happy endings

A Promise Broken

By Lynn E. O'Connacht

When four-year-old Eiryn tries to call rain at her mother’s funeral, others worry she might have upset the balance of the world. As her new guardian, her aroace uncle Arèn must learn the ropes of parenting while trying to protect her from harm. Yet all Eiryn wants is to make everyone happy even as grief and fear tear at them

Check out this book and more on our best of list for books with aromantic characters.

Publisher’s Description:

It’s a rainy day when four-year-old Eiryn has to say goodbye to her mother. Scared, confused and unwilling to do so, Eiryn tries to summon water to stop the funeral from happening and her life falls apart. Her uncle is always sad and busy; she keeps hearing her mother’s voice asking her to follow; her best friend keeps getting into fights; and some of her classmates hate her for existing.

Arèn never wanted children, but he’s desperate to protect his niece from his people’s extreme caution regarding magic and other races. Kerisaoina children aren’t capable of using it and his niece is no exception. Despite being only half-kerisaoina, Eiryn is already starting to show that she’ll be one of her generation’s most talented magic-singers and those who don’t approve of her existence are trying to take advantage of a young girl’s grief.

Eiryn is determined to make her uncle happy, but it’s hard to make other people happy when you have to struggle through the day yourself. She’ll find a way, though. She’s promised. And even if her mother won’t keep her word Eiryn will keep hers.

She’ll make everything right again.

You’ll see.

Genre: Fantasy

Representation:

Gender:
Cis girls: Eiryn, Keilan
Cis boys: Radèn
Genderqueer/Nonbinary: Orryn
Trans guys: Arèn

Sexuality:
Bisexual: Keilan
Asexual: Arèn
Heterosexual: Radèn, Eiryn

Romantic Orientation:
Biromantic: Keilan
Aromantic: Arèn

Race/Ethnicity:
Eiryn is multiracial (kerisaoina-gaodansaoina), but their concept of race does not map neatly onto ours.

Disability:
Eiryn has depression and dyscalculia. Radèn is albino.

Trigger Warnings:
racism
bullying
depression
suicide ideation
family death

Additional Notes: Read more from Lynn!  Most of the cast features adults.

Ownvoices: A Promise Broken is ownvoices for asexuality, depression and dyscalculia.

The Shapeshifter Chronicles

By Lauren Jankowski

Publisher’s Description:

Unbeknownst to humans, shapeshifters live among them. Isis had never heard of any, but when the body disappears from photographs of a murder scene she took, she begins to investigate. Soon she finds herself deep into shapeshifter wars between protective guardians and more sinister forces, and uncovers secrets about her past that will change her life.  Series includes five books (Sere From the Green, The Dwelling of Ekhidna, Through Storm and Night, From the Ashes, Haunted by the Keres.)

Genre: Fantasy

Representation:
Gender:
Cis girls
Cis boys

Sexual and Romantic Orientation:
Alex is asexual and aromantic.  Isis is grey-asexual and grey-romantic.  Blitz is asexual and aroflux.

Race/Ethnicity:
Characters are white.

Trigger Warnings:

Additional Notes: Author Lauren Jankowski is the founder of Asexual Artists.

Ownvoices: Aromantic, asexual.

City of Betrayal

By Claudie Arseneault

The whole city is searching for Hasryan—some for revenge and justice, others to save their friends. Yet no one knows where to find him except Lord Arathiel Brasten, who vanished 130 years ago only to magically return.

Lord Diel Dathirii’s struggle to free his city from the neighbouring imperialistic enclave is far from over. Enemies gather around him, and without allies in Isandor’s upper spheres, he must place his fate in Lower City residents. Little does he know, the city he’s trying to save might well save him in return

Author’s Description:

The whole city is searching for Hasryan.

Lord Allastam wants to take bloody, ruthless revenge for the murder of his wife. Inspector Sora Sharpe wants to bring him to justice for his crimes against the city. Yet no one knows where to find him except Lord Arathiel Brasten, who vanished 130 years ago only to magically return.

While the city’s eyes are turned to these two, no one is willing to help Lord Diel Dathirii free Isandor from the influence of the Myrian Enclave and their vengeful leader, Avenazar. High Priest Varden Daramond could help Diel, except Varden has been imprisoned. Lord Dathirii’s only hope of rescuing Varden is Arathiel. An alliance with him, however, would invoke the wrath of the Golden Table… and Lord Allastam himself.

With enemies gathering around him, Diel is left without allies in Isandor’s upper spheres and must place his fate in Lower City residents. But little does he know, the city he’s trying to save might well save him in return.

Representation:
Gender:
Cis boys: Cal, Hasryan, Arathiel, Diel, Nevian,
Cis girls: Branwen
Trans woman: Sora
Genderqueer: Vellien

Sexual and Romantic Orientation:
Cal is asexual and aromantic.
Hasryan is heterosexual and demiromantic.
Larryn is gray-asexual and panromantic.
Nevian is sex-repulsed and biromantic.
Branwen is bisexual and biromantic.
Arathiel is gay and homoromantic
Sora is heterosexual and heteroromantic
Diel is a polyamorous, bisexual gay man.
Vellien is pansexual and panromantic

Race/Ethnicity:
Sora is Asian
Arathiel is Black
Cal, Nevien, Diel and Branwen are White
Hasryan is a PoC. He is from a fantasy race that does not have a comparable real-world counterpart.

Trigger Warnings: From the author’s website: “Abuse (verbal, physical), violence, fire/burns, torture, racism, mind control.”

Ownvoices: Asexual, aromantic

Additional Notes: Second in a series. Arathiel has sensory disabilities.  Vellien has anxiety.

Letters in the Attic

By Bonnie Shimko

Twelve-year-old Lizzy moves to upstate New York with her mother after her parents’ divorce in the early 1960s. There, she comes of age and falls in love with her new best friend Eva, who is dyslexic, while navigating standard milestones like periods and bras.

Beauty of the Broken

By Tawni Waters

In this violent, painful novel, Mara begins a relationship with Xylia despite a homophobic, abusive father who has caused permanent brain damage to her brother. She is raped and accidentally accuses her best friend, who is a Native American of unspecified tribe.

Publisher’s Description

In this lyrical, heartwrenching story about a forbidden first love, a teen seeks the courage to care for another girl despite her small town’s bigotry and her father’s violent threats.

Growing up in conservative small-town New Mexico, fifteen-year-old Mara was never given the choice to be different. Her parents—an abusive, close-minded father and a detached alcoholic mother—raised Mara to be like all the other girls in Barnaby: God-fearing, churchgoing, and straight. Mara wants nothing to do with any of it. She feels most at home with her best friend and older brother, Iggy, but Iggy hasn’t been the same since their father beat him and put him in the hospital with a concussion.

As Mara’s mother feeds her denial with bourbon and Iggy struggles with his own demons, Mara finds an escape with her classmate Xylia. A San Francisco transplant, Xylia is everything Mara dreams of being: free-spirited, open, wild. The closer Mara and Xylia become, the more Mara feels for her—even though their growing relationship is very much forbidden in Barnaby. Just as Mara begins to live a life she’s only imagined, the girls’ secret is threatened with exposure and Mara’s world is thrown into chaos.

Mara knows she can’t live without Xylia, but can she live with an entire town who believes she is an abomination worse than the gravest sin?

Genre: Contemporary

Representation:
Gender:
Cis girls: Mara, Xylia

Sexual  Orientation:
Lesbian/Queer: Mara, Xylia

Romantic Orientation:
Homoromantic: Mara, Xylia

Race/Ethnicity:
White: Mara
Indigenous: Henry

Disability:
Mara’s father  has caused permanent brain damage to her brother

Trigger warnings:
Sexual assault/rape, physical assault, domestic violence, being outed involuntarily, homophobia, murder, drowning kittens

 

Unbecoming

By Jenny Downham

Katie, her mother, Caroline, and her grandmother, Mary, all have secrets. Mary, who has Alzheimer’s, moves in with Katie and Caroline, and Katie soon feels drawn to her. Katie becomes determined to get to the bottom of the mysteries that are at the root of Mary’s estrangement from the family.

Publisher’s Description:

Katie’s life is falling apart: her best friend thinks she’s a freak, her mother, Caroline, controls every aspect of her life, and her estranged grandmother, Mary, appears as if out of nowhere. Mary has dementia and needs lots of care, and when Katie starts putting together Mary’s life story, secrets and lies are uncovered: Mary’s illegitimate baby, her zest for life and freedom and men; the way she lived her life to the full yet suffered huge sacrifices along the way. As the relationship between Mary and Caroline is explored, Katie begins to understand her own mother’s behavior, and from that insight, the terrors about her sexuality, her future, and her younger brother are all put into perspective.

Genre: Contemporary

Representation:
Gender:
Cis girls: Katie, Caroline, Mary, Pat.

Sexual Orientation:
Queer/Questioning: Katie
Heterosexual: Pat, Mary, Caroline

Romantic Orientation:
Not explicitly mentioned.

Race/Ethnicity:
All the characters are white.

Trigger Warnings:
Katie’s father rejects her brother Chris because of his cognitive disability.