55 books like Cursed

By Karol Ruth Silverstein,

Here are 55 books that Cursed fans have personally recommended if you like Cursed. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Good Different

Ona Gritz Author Of The Space You Left Behind

From my list on middle grade and YA books by disabled authors.

Why am I passionate about this?

“Everyone’s got something,” my mom used to say about my cerebral palsy. I knew kids who wore glasses or had mouthfuls of metal, but those somethings seemed normal compared to my leg brace, my limp, and my inability to run. When Judy Blume’s Deenie came out on my eleventh birthday, it was the very gift I needed: the story of a girl, a diagnosis, a brace. Reading it, I felt seen and understood, which led me to believe I might have a story to tell. Now, I’m thrilled to share these books by disabled authors about disabled kids leading authentic, relatable lives. I had Deenie. Today’s lucky young readers have these.

Ona's book list on middle grade and YA books by disabled authors

Ona Gritz Why did Ona love this book?

Being a poet, I love verse novels, and this one grows richer every time I read it. Seventh-grader Selah works hard to follow rigid, self-imposed rules so she’ll be seen as a “normal” girl in school, someone who doesn’t get overwhelmed by crowds or noise or jump from unexpected touch as though she’s been shocked.

What’s amazing about Selah is that, when keeping to those rules proves impossible and she gets in trouble, she trusts herself. With a few clues, she comes to understand she’s on the autism spectrum and finds simple tools that make a big difference.

She also starts expressing herself by writing poems. It moves me so much that poetry is represented here as a source of strength and that being unique is recognized as an asset.  

By Meg Eden Kuyatt,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked Good Different as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 8, 9, 10, and 11.

What is this book about?

A debut novel-in-verse about understanding and celebrating
your own difference.
Selah knows her rules for being normal.

This means keeping her feelings locked tightly inside, despite
the way they build up inside her as each school day goes on, so
that she has to run to the bathroom and hide in the stall until she
can calm down. Selah feels like a dragon stuck in a world of humans,
but she knows how to hide it.

Until the day she explodes and hits a fellow student.

As her comfortable, familiar world crumbles around her, Selah
starts to figure out more…


Book cover of The Year My Life Went Down the Toilet

Ona Gritz Author Of The Space You Left Behind

From my list on middle grade and YA books by disabled authors.

Why am I passionate about this?

“Everyone’s got something,” my mom used to say about my cerebral palsy. I knew kids who wore glasses or had mouthfuls of metal, but those somethings seemed normal compared to my leg brace, my limp, and my inability to run. When Judy Blume’s Deenie came out on my eleventh birthday, it was the very gift I needed: the story of a girl, a diagnosis, a brace. Reading it, I felt seen and understood, which led me to believe I might have a story to tell. Now, I’m thrilled to share these books by disabled authors about disabled kids leading authentic, relatable lives. I had Deenie. Today’s lucky young readers have these.

Ona's book list on middle grade and YA books by disabled authors

Ona Gritz Why did Ona love this book?

The candor and vulnerability of seventh-grader Al Schneider grabbed me from the start. Her best and only friend is drifting away, she hasn’t told anyone she likes girls, and a constant urgent need to poop has taken over her life. When Al learns she has Crohn’s disease, she is terrified at first, but then the unexpected happens.

Her diagnosis brings a new group of friends into her life. They call themselves the Bathroom Club, and they’re warm, funny, understanding, and, above all, welcoming. What a gift to a kid who, until now, has found it “mortifying just to be alive and have a body.” What a gift to readers who have yet to discover that, if you let it, disability can offer entry into a rich, vibrant, and accepting community.

By Jake Maia Arlow,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Year My Life Went Down the Toilet as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 10, 11, 12, and 13.

What is this book about?

Twelve-year-old Al Schneider is too scared to talk about the two biggest things in her life:

1. Her stomach hurts all the time and she has no idea why.
2. She's almost definitely 100% sure she likes girls.

So she holds it in... until she can't. After nearly having an accident of the lavatorial variety in gym class, Al finds herself getting a colonoscopy and an answer - she has Crohn's disease.

But rather than solving all her problems, Al's diagnosis just makes everything worse. It's scary and embarrassing. And worst of all, everyone wants her to talk about it…


Book cover of The Secret Summer Promise

Ona Gritz Author Of The Space You Left Behind

From my list on middle grade and YA books by disabled authors.

Why am I passionate about this?

“Everyone’s got something,” my mom used to say about my cerebral palsy. I knew kids who wore glasses or had mouthfuls of metal, but those somethings seemed normal compared to my leg brace, my limp, and my inability to run. When Judy Blume’s Deenie came out on my eleventh birthday, it was the very gift I needed: the story of a girl, a diagnosis, a brace. Reading it, I felt seen and understood, which led me to believe I might have a story to tell. Now, I’m thrilled to share these books by disabled authors about disabled kids leading authentic, relatable lives. I had Deenie. Today’s lucky young readers have these.

Ona's book list on middle grade and YA books by disabled authors

Ona Gritz Why did Ona love this book?

What makes this novel so compelling to me is how it captures the exuberance and intensity of teen friendships. That intensity has really revved for seventeen-year-old Andrea now that she’s realized she’s in love with her best friend Hailee. Unfortunately, she’s certain—partly because of her cerebral palsy—that Hailee couldn’t possibly feel the same.

Despite these doubts, Andrea has confidence and sass, which makes her a great model for readers with disabilities. That, along with her loyal, affectionate friend group, are my favorite aspects of the book. Andrea’s friends adore her, even as she makes a mess of things in an attempt to fall out of love. Also, they treat her disability matter-of-factly, as does the author. Andrea’s C.P. is real and present but never takes over the story.

By Keah Brown,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Secret Summer Promise as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 12, 13, 14, and 15.

What is this book about?

THE BSE (Best Summer Ever) LIST!
 
1.        Blueberries
2.        Art show in ShoeHorn
3.        Lizzo concert
4.        Thrift shop pop-up
5.        Skinny Dipping at the lake house
6.        Amusement Park Day!
7.        Drew Barrymarathon
8.        Paintball day
 
Oh, and ….
 
9.        Fall out of love with Hailee.
 
Andrea Williams has got this. The Best Summer Ever. Last summer, she spent all her time in bed, recovering from the latest surgery for her cerebral palsy. She’s waited too long for adventure and thrills to enter her life. Together with her crew of ride-or-die friends, and the best parents anyone could ask…


Book cover of Sick Girl Secrets

Ona Gritz Author Of The Space You Left Behind

From my list on middle grade and YA books by disabled authors.

Why am I passionate about this?

“Everyone’s got something,” my mom used to say about my cerebral palsy. I knew kids who wore glasses or had mouthfuls of metal, but those somethings seemed normal compared to my leg brace, my limp, and my inability to run. When Judy Blume’s Deenie came out on my eleventh birthday, it was the very gift I needed: the story of a girl, a diagnosis, a brace. Reading it, I felt seen and understood, which led me to believe I might have a story to tell. Now, I’m thrilled to share these books by disabled authors about disabled kids leading authentic, relatable lives. I had Deenie. Today’s lucky young readers have these.

Ona's book list on middle grade and YA books by disabled authors

Ona Gritz Why did Ona love this book?

So many of us, especially as teenagers, have felt the need to hide what’s different about us from classmates and friends. This spare, lovely verse novel captures those feelings perfectly. Natalie, who lives with chronic pain and frequent bone dislocations due to Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, is so invested in this facade that she hides her wheelchair and forces herself to walk in school despite the pain and damage to her joints.

But secretiveness is, of course, born of shame. And disability, Natalie eventually learns with the help of a fiery, self-possessed disabled friend, isn’t what’s shameful. Inaccessibility is. Ableism is. Eventually, the two girls join forces to confront both in their school community, making this book a call to action and self-acceptance. I also find it to be an unputdownable page-turner.

By Anna Russell,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Sick Girl Secrets as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 13, 14, 15, and 16.

What is this book about?

Sometimes in high school, all you want is to be invisible. Being invisible might be the biggest problem of all for Natalie. She has a disability that causes chaos to her body on the inside but leaves her unmarked on the outside. She's learned to hide her pain so well that you would never guess she's not the same Natalie as she was before she got sick. But after having surgery, Natalie must return to school in a wheelchair. Now, Natalie has to decide if the painful consequences of pretending to be healthy are worth keeping the last of her…


Book cover of Second Best Men

Sophia Soames Author Of In this Bed of Snowflakes we Lie

From my list on holiday romance you’ll want to read every year.

Why am I passionate about this?

Having grown up in snowy Scandinavia, my passion for Christmas has always been with me. Nothing beats a good romantic holiday novel, and especially one containing all those themes we know and love. A little bit of loneliness. A pinch of festive fun. Add that special meet-cute. Sprinkle magic over the pages and a comfort-read for years to come is born. As an author I hope my readers enjoy my festive romps, and that perhaps even they, can become a well-read yearly comfort read.

Sophia's book list on holiday romance you’ll want to read every year

Sophia Soames Why did Sophia love this book?

Not everyone loves a festive romance, when it involves everything we ourselves may neither want or need.

For Rob and Evan, their Christmas has been mostly hell, and as Evan crashes his car outside Rob’s remote farm? Well, it’s a classic opener. Add a snowstorm, a bull named Watermelon and a dislocated shoulder? You have the setup for a very happy end of the festive season indeed.

Fearne Hill writes stories full of warmth and British charm, and if you feel hungover on the festive season already? This might just be the book for you.

By Fearne Hill,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Second Best Men as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Two snowed-in men. 300 cows. And a mangy dog.
Tucked away down a rutted dirt track lives a grumpy dairy farmer.

He’s firmly in the closet. And he’s desperately lonely.

That farmer is me—Rob Langford. I have more meaningful conversations with my prize bull than people. Except, one snowy night, I stumble across a fancy car wedged into a ditch.

The driver needs my help.

He’s injured. Stranded. The snow lies two feet deep.

And over the next few days, I discover this quiet, thoughtful man doesn’t mind my run-down cottage and my lumpy old sofa. He's even quite tolerant…


Book cover of Why I Burned My Book and Other Essays on Disability

Meredith Eliassen Author Of Helen Keller: A Life in American History

From my list on disability and related inclusive movements.

Why am I passionate about this?

There have always been disabled people shaping my worldview and understanding, however, I am an expert only about my own disabilities. Disabled storytellers, including Helen Keller, sometimes utilize tactical silence to scream… I value that! However, barriers confronting the disabled require broad and sometimes loud collective action from many people in many communities and not just a marginalized few. Disability activism is a complex, tactical fight over time for self-determination that touches all of us at some point. COVID, world events, and experiencing some barriers disabled and marginalized groups face all the time have compelled me to share a few of my favorite reads related to disability and inclusion.

Meredith's book list on disability and related inclusive movements

Meredith Eliassen Why did Meredith love this book?

As a student at San Francisco State University, I took Paul Longmore’s HIST 490 “Disability in America” course and it quite simply changed how I interpret United States history. The autobiographical title essay in Why I Burned My Book presents foundational logic for understanding legal and cultural barriers impacting the disabled, and how capitalism impacts minority groups. Nobody speaks better on disability than the disabled. Longmore creates a model built upon the work of earlier disability scholars-activist in presenting “Catch-22” paradigms in oppressive laws related to race and gender impacting minority groups. When I read Longmore’s ideas, I can again look into his insightful eyes flashing sparks of humor, defiance, anger, and joy. My book about Helen Keller simply would not exist without Longmore’s passionate investment in students.

By Paul K. Longmore,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Why I Burned My Book and Other Essays on Disability as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

"Personal inclination made me a historian. Personal encounter with public policy made me an activist."


Book cover of The Disability Studies Reader

Karen Havelin Author Of Please Read This Leaflet Carefully: Keep This Leaflet. You May Need to Read It Again.

From my list on to help you keep on living with chronic illness.

Why am I passionate about this?

Like my main character, I’m a Norwegian writer with ties to the US, who grew up with various chronic illnesses. I discovered the reason for much of my trouble when I was diagnosed with endometriosis. Isolated and in pain, I have always turned to books. I craved seeing my life reflected. Since Please Read This Leaflet Carefully came out, I’ve heard from many readers. I hope that it can help people who haven’t seen themselves in art before. This list addresses the needs of a life with chronic illness and pain: guidance, darkness, humor, comfort, and poetry. I hope these books will help you as much as they did me. 

Karen's book list on to help you keep on living with chronic illness

Karen Havelin Why did Karen love this book?

I was absolutely stunned when I read "Unspeakable Conversations" by Harriet McBryde Johnson, one of the many brilliant pieces included in this reader. My edition is from 2010, but new and updated editions have come out since. It explores questions of interdependency and independence, gender, the body, sexuality, biases in science and medicine, and physical disabilities, and investigates issues around pain, mental disability, and invisible disabilities.

Becoming familiar with some disability theories has been invaluable to me. My capacity to read myself as disabled has grown and still fluctuates. To know that sharp minds have been working on this and that it isn’t only a private issue but a political and theoretical one, one that can be marked by joy and humor as well as grief, struggle, and hardship, is immensely helpful. 

By Lennard J. Davis,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Disability Studies Reader as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The fifth edition of The Disability Studies Reader addresses the post-identity theoretical landscape by emphasizing questions of interdependency and independence, the human-animal relationship, and issues around the construction or materiality of gender, the body, and sexuality. Selections explore the underlying biases of medical and scientific experiments and explode the binary of the sound and the diseased mind. The collection addresses physical disabilities, but as always investigates issues around pain, mental disability, and invisible disabilities as well. Featuring a new generation of scholars who are dealing with the most current issues, the fifth edition continues the Reader's tradition of remaining timely,…


Book cover of The Right to Maim

J. Moufawad-Paul Author Of Austerity Apparatus

From my list on the state and state repression.

Why am I passionate about this?

One of my long-standing interests, as a political philosopher, has been to examine the deployment of state power and the state forms (what I call states of affairs) the capitalist mode of production takes in order to preserve its economic order. Since I completed my doctorate, which was on the articulation of settler-colonial power in relationship to remaining settler states, I have largely been invested in thinking politics: how dominant politics maintain the current order, how counter-hegemonic politics disrupt this order. 

J.'s book list on the state and state repression

J. Moufawad-Paul Why did J. love this book?

I find Puar’s work to be very useful even if the theoretical framework she uses is different from, though adjacent to, mine. Usually I find the “biopolitical” analysis cloying and idealist, but Puar has developed her own materialist use of this framework that I have learned a lot from. In The Right to Maim Puar examines the liberal state’s use of maiming and debilitation as part of the reproduction of its hegemony. Not only does she examine the way a liberal disability discourse functions to exclude marginalized and targeted populations—proposing a vector of disability, debility, and capacity—she also interrogates how maiming functions in capitalist, colonial, and imperialist state policing. Moreover, her case study of Palestine, based on her own fieldwork, makes the more abstract aspects of her theory concrete.  

By Jasbir K. Puar,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Right to Maim as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In The Right to Maim Jasbir K. Puar brings her pathbreaking work on the liberal state, sexuality, and biopolitics to bear on our understanding of disability. Drawing on a stunning array of theoretical and methodological frameworks, Puar uses the concept of "debility"-bodily injury and social exclusion brought on by economic and political factors-to disrupt the category of disability. She shows how debility, disability, and capacity together constitute an assemblage that states use to control populations. Puar's analysis culminates in an interrogation of Israel's policies toward Palestine, in which she outlines how Israel brings Palestinians into biopolitical being by designating them…


Book cover of Black Disability Politics

Jay Timothy Dolmage Author Of Academic Ableism: Disability and Higher Education

From my list on fighting ableism and building a better future.

Why am I passionate about this?

I grew up in the Disability Rights movement in Canada, fighting for my brother’s right to go to school, to receive medical care, and to be part of our community. For decades, disabled people were institutionalized away from their families and communities, warehoused instead of schooled. My uncle Robert died of neglect in one of these terrible places as a child. My family has been involved in supporting a class action lawsuit against the Ontario government for its responsibility. Since then, the right to education has been better established, and the institutions were closed. But I continue to fight for inclusion and against ableism in education, healthcare, and across our culture.

Jay's book list on fighting ableism and building a better future

Jay Timothy Dolmage Why did Jay love this book?

Black Disability Politics also just came out in early Fall 2022, and I was very excited to receive my print copy. The book shows how Black people have long engaged with disability as a political issue tightly tied to race and racism. This, however, has not been the story told in disability studies or in mainstream histories of the Disability Rights movement. Schalk deeply explores archives (for instance those of the Black Panther Party) and layers these findings across interviews with contemporary Black disabled community organizers, to recognize the richness and power of Black disability politics. This book is full of surprises, memorable archival anecdotes, and powerful conversations between Schalk and others. You should read this book! If a goal within ableist and white supremacist society is liberation, Schalk shows how essential it is to engage in antiracist, feminist, and anti-ableist political and cultural coalition.

By Sami Schalk,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Black Disability Politics as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In Black Disability Politics Sami Schalk explores how issues of disability have been and continue to be central to Black activism from the 1970s to the present. Schalk shows how Black people have long engaged with disability as a political issue deeply tied to race and racism. She points out that this work has not been recognized as part of the legacy of disability justice and liberation because Black disability politics differ in language and approach from the mainstream white-dominant disability rights movement. Drawing on the archives of the Black Panther Party and the National Black Women's Health Project alongside…


Book cover of Signs of Disability

Jay Timothy Dolmage Author Of Academic Ableism: Disability and Higher Education

From my list on fighting ableism and building a better future.

Why am I passionate about this?

I grew up in the Disability Rights movement in Canada, fighting for my brother’s right to go to school, to receive medical care, and to be part of our community. For decades, disabled people were institutionalized away from their families and communities, warehoused instead of schooled. My uncle Robert died of neglect in one of these terrible places as a child. My family has been involved in supporting a class action lawsuit against the Ontario government for its responsibility. Since then, the right to education has been better established, and the institutions were closed. But I continue to fight for inclusion and against ableism in education, healthcare, and across our culture.

Jay's book list on fighting ableism and building a better future

Jay Timothy Dolmage Why did Jay love this book?

I was lucky to get the opportunity to read an advance copy of Dr. Kerschbaum's latest monograph, Signs of Disability (in the press and available in both print and open access in Fall 2022). The book focuses on the signs of disability we can recognize everywhere around us: yellow diamond-shaped “deaf person in area” road signs, that wheelchair parking icon, the telltale shapes of hearing aids, or white-tipped canes sweeping across footpaths. But even though the signs are ubiquitous, Kerschbaum argues that disability may still not be perceived as anything but a token or an apparition. This engaging, accessible book builds on Kerschbaum’s already-award-winning scholarship on difference and discourse, constructing new research methods and approaches, but also building community on these pages. Drawing on a set of thirty-three research interviews, as well as written narratives by disabled people, this book builds a new system of signs and significance for disability.…

By Stephanie L. Kerschbaum,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Signs of Disability as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

How can we learn to notice the signs of disability?
We see indications of disability everywhere: yellow diamond-shaped "deaf person in area" road signs, the telltale shapes of hearing aids, or white-tipped canes sweeping across footpaths. But even though the signs are ubiquitous, Stephanie L. Kerschbaum argues that disability may still not be perceived due to a process she terms "dis-attention."
To tell better stories of disability, this multidisciplinary work turns to rhetoric, communications, sociology, and phenomenology to understand the processes by which the material world becomes sensory input that then passes through perceptual apparatuses to materialize phenomena-including disability. By…


Book cover of Good Different
Book cover of The Year My Life Went Down the Toilet
Book cover of The Secret Summer Promise

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