Alternate Worlds: Exploring Disability and COVID in YA Fiction, a guest post by Bethany Mangle

When I first considered writing a young adult novel that tackled the impact of COVID, I wasn’t quite sure how to frame it. With so few books mentioning the pandemic, it felt like uncharted territory. However, I knew that I wanted to highlight this aspect of what it’s like to be disabled in a world that isn’t designed for people like me.

In Conditions of a Heart, the main character Brynn hides her disability from her closest friends and especially from her ex-boyfriend, Oliver. After seeing how people reacted to the thought of getting sick during the pandemic, she doesn’t believe anyone will truly love her without seeing her as broken, pitiful, or lesser. Brynn is also incredibly angry that social improvements such as widespread access to telehealth seemed to evaporate as soon as the majority felt safe. She just isn’t sure where she fits.

Many of those emotions are drawn from my own life. Weaving those ideas into fiction is incredibly important to me as a writer. My goal isn’t just to show the struggles disabled people face on a daily basis; I also want to underscore that we’re complete, whole people with a wealth of different experiences. We can be the main character, the popular kid, the pretty girl who just wants a cute boy to love her.

Fiction that includes disabled characters is too often written by nondisabled authors who fail to elevate those characters beyond the trope of the sad disabled person who yearns to be normal before tragically dying at the end. In Conditions of a Heart, Brynn fakes being healthy because of toxic external pressures, not because she isn’t valid the way she is. Her exploration of her own worth and identity mirror the journey I underwent to let go of internalized ableism and unfair social expectations. I’m still working on that to this day.

As someone with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, a genetic connective tissue disorder, the pandemic seemed like a step back in the progress society had made toward inclusivity and accessibility. People suddenly became hostile about even basic courtesies like covering their mouths to cough. Meanwhile, the lack of masking made it dangerous to go to the store, the gym, the movies. I can’t separate those realities from Brynn’s life.

While I know reading about a collective trauma like the pandemic isn’t for everyone, I’m eternally grateful that I was able to address COVID in Conditions of a Heart. In my eyes, it’s still an integral part of how I experience the world. I hope my work will encourage others to think about disability in a broader context, whether that’s rethinking how disabled characters are portrayed or creating more opportunities for disabled writers to tell their own stories.

Writing a novel that reflects so much of my life wasn’t easy, but it was one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever done. Books were lifelines for me during my formative years, and I love thinking that maybe a disabled teen will see themselves in Brynn and take heart in the fact that—even though she took the scenic route to self-acceptance—she’s okay. I’m okay too.

Meet the author

Bethany Mangle is the author of Prepped, All the Right Reasons, and Conditions of a Heart. When she isn’t writing, she enjoys spoiling her dogs, playing video games, and spending time with her unbearably nerdy husband. She moves too much to put a location in her bio ever again. Visit her at BethanyMangle.com.

Social media links: www.twitter.com/bethanymangle, www.instagram.com/bethanymangle

About Conditions of a Heart

For fans of Talia Hibbert and Lynn Painter comes a funny and unflinchingly honest story about a teen who must come to terms with her disability and what it means for her identity, her love life, and her future.

Brynn Kwan is desperate for her high school persona to be real. That Brynn is head of the yearbook committee, the favorite for prom queen, and definitely not crumbling from a secret disability that’s rapidly wearing her down. If no one knows the truth about her condition, Brynn doesn’t have to worry about the pitying looks or accusations of being a faker that already destroyed her childhood friendships. She’s even willing to let go of her four-year relationship with her first love, Oliver, rather than reveal that a necessary surgery was the reason she ignored his existence for the entire summer.

But after Brynn tries to break up a fight at a pep rally and winds up barred from all her clubs and senior prom, she has nothing left to prop up her illusion of being just like everyone else. During a week-long suspension from school, she realizes that she doesn’t quite recognize the face in the mirror—and it’s not because of her black eye from the fight. With a healthy sister who simply doesn’t understand and a confused ex-boyfriend who won’t just take a hint and go away like a normal human being, Brynn begins to wonder if it’s possible to reinvent her world by being the person she thought no one wanted: herself.

ISBN-13: 9781665937634
Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books
Publication date: 02/20/2024
Age Range: 14 – 18 Years

Filed under: Guest Post