Ultimate Popsugar Reading Challenge discussion
2020 Challenge - Advanced
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03 - A book with a character with a vision impairment or enhancement
Storm and Fury by Jennifer L. Armentrout the main character has Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP). It is also an own voices book as the author also suffers from RP. The sequel Rage and Ruin is due out in 2020.
I attempted to read Blindness by Jose Saramago a couple of years ago. I gave up on it, but I might give it another go. I like the idea about a biography of Helen Keller, though.
I took this also to mean a character that wears contacts or glasses...I can't see without mine so that is a vision impairment. Stella wears glasses in The Kiss Quotient. The character on the cover of The Bookish Life of Nina Hill is wearing glasses.
My book club just read The Art of Hearing Heartbeats, which we all enjoyed. It is set in Burma (Myanmar)The Tales of Max Carrados - Max is a blind detective in London. The stories began in 1914 and ran along with Holmes in The Strand. Stephen Fry reads this audiobook.
Haben: The Deafblind Woman Who Conquered Harvard Law is on my TBR
Together and Alive Day: A Story of Love and Loyalty are both about blind people and seeing eye dogs. I believe the author Tom Sullivan is blind.
I am thinking fantasy genre if someone can see more than others like ghosts etc. or???
An excellent middle grade book that would work is Tangerine. His vision impairment is actually a big part of the plot (he's legally blind).
Run is a YA book where one of the characters is legally blind. Haben: The Deafblind Woman Who Conquered Harvard Law was recommended by a friend of mine and is the book up next for me to read
Thunder Dog: The True Story of a Blind Man, His Guide Dog, and the Triumph of Trust at Ground Zero was interesting. Its part about his experiences at 9/11 and helping guide others out when the smoke made it impossible to see and part memoir of growing up
All the Light We Cannot See is about a blind girl but is in alternating POV with two other characters is excellent--I see it's been mentioned but I'll be back as I know there is another I just have to search for.Here are two more linksj
Another GR listopia https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/6...
And this bit on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blindne...
Not sure if this one counts, but one of the main protagonists in Red Sparrow can see the emotions of others as colors.
Anabell wrote: "I am thinking fantasy genre if someone can see more than others like ghosts etc. or???"That's an interesting twist on the prompt! My Plain Jane is a Jane Eyre retelling where she can see ghosts. I haven't read it yet, but it would fit under this interpretation.
Anabell wrote: "I am thinking fantasy genre if someone can see more than others like ghosts etc. or???"What a neat idea! I just finished The Curse of Chalion, which definitely includes a character gaining a vision enhancement - they think of it as a sort of "second sight."
Sara wrote: "My Plain Jane is a Jane Eyre retelling where she can see ghosts. I haven't read it yet, but it would fit under this interpretation."I'm so glad you said that! I'm trying to only pull books that are already on my TBR list, and that's one I've been looking at for awhile! I'm actually planning to read the first one (My Lady Jane) for the 2019 challenge as my "book written by two female authors."
Mod
Yes! I just remembered the Danish time travel series Spektrum (#1 Leoniderne) that I am in the middle of, has a main character who is blind! *happy dance* I´ve decided that next year is my year of catching up on series, so I´ll need all the help I can get, if I want to finish challenges as well.
Nadine wrote: "Someone added My Lady Jane and Ghost World and I’m wondering if they do work for this prompt? I would add them to my own list if they do, but nothing in the blurbs ment..."Ghost World shows a character with glasses on the cover.
My Lady Jane seems to have a character who's a . . . were-horse? I'm guessing with herd-animal eyes set on the sides of his head he'll have trouble seeing as well as when he's a human?
Mod
LOL! it just sounds funny when you put it like that!
I'd really like to read a book with a blind character.
I've already read The Arrangement, The Young Unicorns, and All the Light We Cannot See, so not those.
Blindness is a maybe for me. It looks kind of ... deep? (Am I wrong? I like dystopias... ) I also found Dearest Rogue but I usually don't like Hoyt's books.
There are plenty of listopias, but it's hard to know sometimes if those books are good (let alone if they will be available at my library).
Has anyone read:
Girl, Stolen
Blind Curve
For those who like thrillers there's:In the Dark
The blurb says: "Jenny Aaron was a government assassin, part of an elite unit tracking Germany's most dangerous criminals. She was one of the best, until a disastrous mission ended with her abandoning a wounded colleague and then going blind from her injuries. Now, five years later, she has learnt to navigate a darkened world, but is haunted by betraying her colleague. When she is called back to the force to trace a ruthless serial killer, she seizes the opportunity to solve the case and restore her honour."
Nadine wrote: "Blindness is a maybe for me. It looks kind of ... deep? (Am I wrong? I like dystopias... )..."It's similar to Day of the Triffids (but less cozy catastrophe), society collapses when people lose a sense type of thing. The translation I read didn't add speech marks so I remember being a bit confused by the dialogue, but I don't think it's too deep.
Mod
And thanks for the heads up on lack of dialogue marks, I do find that annoying. I’ll try the audiobook version - then the audiobook reader has to deal with it :-)
Ziggy wrote: "It’s been a long time since I read these books but By the Shores of Silver LakebyLaura Ingalls Wilder and probably a few books after in the series..."Great idea, I was thinking about rereading the series this year
This prompt is the hardest one for me. I think I will go with a vision enhancement and read Superman: Red Son. Instead of being raised in Smallville, Kansas, baby Superman makes his new home on a collective in the Soviet Union!
Mercedes wrote: "Ellie wrote: "Nadine wrote: "Blindness is a maybe for me. It looks kind of ... deep? (Am I wrong? I like dystopias... )..."It's similar to Day of the Triffids (but less cozy catastrophe), society..."
You all are scaring me off. Maybe I should listen to the audiobook.
Milena wrote: "Mercedes wrote: "Ellie wrote: "Nadine wrote: "Blindness is a maybe for me. It looks kind of ... deep? (Am I wrong? I like dystopias... )..."It's similar to Day of the Triffids (but less cozy cata..."
Milena - I agree with the comments about his style. I found it very distracting and hard to read. Also, this is a dark book. I found it to be very disturbing and I'm usually ok with dystopias. At least with the print book, you can skim through some of the violent sections.
I thought this would be an easy prompt, and I'd just read The Blind Assassin. But looking at the synopsis, I'm beginning to think there's not actually a blind character in it. Could someone weigh in on this?
I would highly recommend The Broken Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin for this. Probably best to read The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms first if you haven't (which could count for by a WOC, seven deadly sins, or probably main character in their 20's.)
Oh for some reason I thought it was a Portuguese thing rather than his style. I felt the content was not too dissimilar from many other post apocalyptic books though although I read it ages ago so maybe I forgot some of it. Still doesn't beat The Road for despair levels!
Mod
Good one!! I forgot about the blind protagonist (well, protagonist in one book) in those books.
In Sing, Unburied, Sing the boy and his grandmother can “see” things (dead people or happenings). Also by WOC.
For anyone looking for nonfiction, Now I See You: A Memoir by Nicole Kear is a memoir of a woman going blind in her 20s due to retinitis pigmentosa.
I am going to go with My Stroke of Insight a non -fiction memoir of a brain doctor's stroke" and her in-"sight" into it. My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey
Mark Angelotti is a psychiatrist who's losing his vision in Dante's Wood. There are a total of 3 books in this mystery seriesA mysterious loss of vision spreads across a community in Blindness, as the afflicted are quarantined, bonds and morals are tested.
The two books on my tbr that immediately came to mind are For the Benefit of Those Who See: Dispatches from the World of the Blind which is nonfiction about the first school for the blind in Tibet, and A Sense of the World: How a Blind Man Became History's Greatest Traveler, which is nonfiction about a blind man traveling the world in the early 1800s.
I'm surprised no one has mentioned Dean Koontz's Fear Nothing and Seize the Night. Christopher Snow has made his peace with a very rare genetic disorder shared by only one thousand other Americans, a disorder that leaves him dangerously vulnerable to light.
I've read these but not for years so might read them again.
This year I read Feed, in which the main character has a virus that affects her vision. It was about bloggers in a post-zombie apocalypse world. If you like that kinda thing. I think it would also qualify for a book about a journalist.
Would we count Bird Box for this? People throughout voluntarily shut out their sense of sight, and (view spoiler).
I would think the Sebastian St Cyr Mysteries by C.S Harris would count. The lead character has unusually acute eyesight/night vision which often plays a role in the plot
Mod
Don't be sorry! that's good input.
Reading some of Kate DiCamillo’s books I haven’t read. About 50% thru Flora and Ulysses and one of the characters is “temporarily blind”. Not quite sure how it all plays out yet but he’s in the book enough I would def count it. And it would be a quick read.
Do the other books in the Lunar Chronicles series work for this prompt? Or is it only Cinder?
The Fault in our Stars has a blind character...
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Books mentioned in this topic
Black Sun (other topics)We Are All the Same in the Dark (other topics)
Black Sun (other topics)
Black Sun (other topics)
Haben: The Deafblind Woman Who Conquered Harvard Law (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Rebecca Roanhorse (other topics)Rebecca Roanhorse (other topics)
Paul Crilley (other topics)
Seanan McGuire (other topics)
John M. Hull (other topics)
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Listopia link: https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...