This is about how late stage capitalism has failed and is failing groups of people outside of the white supremacist, imperial-capitalist, able-bodied, cis-hetero, patriarchal ideal. Considering the microscopic amount of people ticking all the above boxes, this book is about how late stage capitalism will eventually fail us all. Why are we ignoring efforts to empower marginalised communities? Why are we not embracing diversity? The pain and inconvenience is surely worth it because we will all, one day, become some form of "sick".

This book is about Johanna Hedva's Sick Woman Theory, the Sick Woman being anyone from a "fifty-year-old gay man who was raped as a teenager and has remained silent and shamed, believing that men can't be raped" to "a mentally ill Black woman whose family called the police for help because she was suffering an episode, and who was murdered in police custody." "Woman" is used to represent all the uncared for, the oppressed, the less than.

This book questions everything (including the author's own thoughts), calls out everyone and yet advocates for radical kinship, for empathy. All the better as well when accompanied with the author's own narration.

In this incisive essay collection, Hedva expands upon their groundbreaking "Sick Woman Theory" that reframes illness as a social experience. Opposing the definition of care in a capitalist society where giving and taking are tallied, Hedva proposes care as a revolutionary act that builds a community in which one's body is detached from its value to earn profit. I love everything about this book. Hedva holds nothing back in their indictment of our ableism by blending family stories, medical journeys, and cultural criticism. DIE is a paradigm-shifting collection on disability and easily one of my top reads of the year.

I never like giving a star rating to memoirs or deeply personal works. It feels wrong to grade how someone reflects on and shares their individual experiences. All that being said, I was very excited to listen to this book and got a lot out of the first portion of the book. The author has a really beautiful, blunt, and sometimes academic way of writing that I appreciated. Once I got to chapter 14, I decided to stop listening. I was personally uncomfortable listening to the accounts of violence and sex.

I am more a sound and movement type of person, so writting written reviews can be quite hard for me, but here go some points that got me in this amazing book:

“Pain is the price I pay to have such experiences” this is what I tell people when they ask me how can I do certain things with my conditions. I choose the things I want to do weighting how much I want to do them/ need to do them and the pain/ sickness they will cause. is always a do and pay game. That i need to take into account always how much time and resources I will need to recover from every activity. This also intertwines with the society difficulty on separating the notions of capacity and capability, I can be capable of doing something, but not have the capacity to do it now.

We lost the sense of community and mutual help, this is something I have been thinking about a lot, and reflecting in my daily interactions. And with this we dont see care as an act we do together but as a transaction. So we dont see the benefit that helping other as on the community (that will in the end have on us)

Why do we need ableism, this book asks the question “why does society need ableism?” Does it make us feel better? Is it the fixed midset of this society that makes us believe that? Is it the believe of productivity, imposed to us by a capitalist society? I haven’t come to a conclusion.

Hedva also points out how a lot of times manifestations and social events are not access to disabled folks. This has affected me directly, i haven’t been able to go to a lot of manifestations that I wanted to go cus, they are not accessible to me, this affects not only us , the people that can not attend, but also the broad society, that misses the input and perspective, of the disabled community on social relevant topics (like lgbtqia+ rights, reproductive rights and housing crisis)

In one chapter, hedva recounts her interactions with a doctor, that wanted to know how to best provide care for the disabled community. This is also a topic really personal to me, being a neurodivergent person, that studied neuropsychology, and is thinking on the possibility of being a clinical neuropsychologist, how could I, knowing the personal experience of autistic person, nest provide care for other autistic and neurodivergent folks?

The book also makes us reflect on the different views that the society has on mental illness in women vs men. And i would like to extend this to mental illness when the person is seen as productive / high status vs not. If your mania makes you be more productive in the eyes of the society , then is seen as good, compared with a depression that makes you “work less”

In the end once again, I fully connect with hedva’s writting, as a person that is also queer, autistic, disabled and chronically ill, they writting makes me feel seen at a whole other level
Thank you so much netgalley for this ARC.

I genuinely loved these essays. As someone who struggles with chronic illness, I found the content throughout relatable but also cathartic to read. I a really appreciated the inclusions of LGBTQIA+ groups as well as the rawness of these stories. This is a must read that I will absolutely be recommending to others.

Read if you're in the mood for something: challenging, emotional, hopeful, reflective, & medium-paced

Book Rating: 4.75 stars
I loved that it was frank and honest on many hard topics and how they talked about finding community. I wish I could find that kind of crip community. I have some crip friends but none who live near me.
As a crip, mentally ill, queer person. I really enjoyed this book! However, it's not for everyone. There's talk of drug abuse, child abuse, and sexuality and kinks (nothing I found disgusting or extreme, as a fairly vanilla person.) However, it's definitely not what most would consider a "mainstream" book club type book.
However, if you want to learn more about being a mentally ill and/or disabled person, and the author's personal journey, and none of the above mentioned topics would stop you from reading, it's an excellent read!
Overall, it was an excellent book that I've already recommended to people I know. I think we need more honest disability memoirs like this. One's that aren't about being the miracle crip who "overcomes" their disability to do extraordinary things, as that's just not realistic for most crip people.

Narrator Rating: 5.0 stars
I found the author did an amazing job of reading their own book! It flowed well, and Johanna's narration added a personal element to the stories, as how they felt when writing each essay came through in the narration.

I received an Audio ARC through the publisher and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts are original and my own.

<b>9/24, HAPPY PUB DAY!</b>

(4.5/5, rounded up)

(full review to come, but seeing as it's pub day I wanted to at least say that this book is phenomenal. they should insert the sound of a mic drop at the end of the audiobook. I highly recommend this book to anyone - no matter your connection to disability. Be forewarned though, there's some pretty heavy description of kink. prob confusing to hear, I swear it'll make sense in context.)

{Thank you bunches to NetGalley, Johanna Hedva and publishers Dreamscape Select and Hillman Grad Books for the ALC in exchange for my honest review!}