July may be Disability Pride Month, but taking pride in every day of the year is essential. And what better way than to celebrate it with something as powerful as love?
No matter what love is to you, we can all take time to recognize that romance and disability coexist every day and in every way. There isn’t such a thing as disabled love, just love, because disabled-identifying individuals experience just like anyone else. Too often, we see disability portrayed negatively, so seeing it actively present in romantic narratives helps lift the veil of stigma and taboo and promotes the truth that disabled people are just people. Additionally, meeting characters as they blossom and lean towards the raw honesty that comes with opening yourself up to someone and being understood for it sets an encouraging example for those who’ve feared they couldn’t be loved as they are.
Below you’ll find 19 books featuring disabled-identifying protagonists and love interests who crush, kiss, fall head over heels, cry, hurt, and learn from love.
YA Romance Books With Disability Representation
LOVE STORIES FOR ALL
1. Peta Lyre’s Rating Normal by Anna Whateley (ADHD, Autism)
Peta Lyre is far from typical. The neurotypical world she lives in isn’t designed for the way her mind works, but when she follows her therapist’s rules for “normal” behavior, she can almost fit in without attracting attention. When a new girl, Sam, starts at school, Peta’s carefully structured routines start to crack. But on the school ski trip, with romance blooming and a newfound confidence, she starts to wonder if maybe she can have a life more like everyone else’s. When things fall apart, Peta must decide whether all the old rules still matter. Does she want a life less ordinary, or should she keep her rating normal?
A coming-of-age story about embracing the things that make us wonderfully unordinary, Peta Lyre’s Rating Normal centers autism and ADHD storylines with humor and compassion.
2. Marcelo in the Real World by Francisco X. Stork (Autism)
The term cognitive disorder implies there is something wrong with the way I think or the way I perceive reality. I perceive reality just fine. Sometimes I perceive reality more than others.
Marcelo Sandoval hears music that nobody else can hear, part of an autism-like condition that no doctor has been able to identify. But his father has never fully believed in the music or Marcelo’s differences, and he challenges Marcelo to work in the mailroom of his law firm for the summer to join what he considers to be “the real world.” Here Marcelo meets Jasmine, his beautiful and surprising coworker, and Wendell, the son of another partner in the firm. He learns about competition and jealousy, anger and desire. But it’s a picture he finds in a file, a picture of a girl with half a face, that truly connects him with the real world: its suffering, its injustice, and what he can do to fight.
This novel is part love story, part legal drama, and through Marcelo’s eyes, a look at the powerful things that bind us together in the face of a society that wants to tear us apart.
3. Something More by Jackie Khalilieh (Autism)
Fifteen-year-old Jessie, a quirky loner obsessed with the nineties, is diagnosed as autistic just weeks before starting high school. Determined to make a fresh start and keep her diagnosis a secret, Jessie creates a list of goals that range from acquiring two distinct eyebrows to getting a magical first kiss and landing a spot in the school play. Within the halls of Holy Trinity High, she finds a world where things are no longer black and white and quickly learns that living in color is much more fun. But Jessie gets more than she bargained for when two very different boys steal her heart, forcing her to go off-script.
4. Queens of Geek by Jen Wilde (Autism)
Charlie likes to stand out. She’s a vlogger and actress promoting her first movie at SupaCon, and this is her chance to show fans she’s over her public breakup with co-star Reese Ryan. When internet-famous cool-girl actress Alyssa Huntington arrives as a surprise guest, it seems Charlie’s long-time crush on her isn’t as one-sided as she thought.
Taylor likes to blend in. Her brain is wired differently, making her fear change. And there’s one thing in her life she knows will never change: her friendship with her best guy friend Jamie–no matter how much she may secretly want it to. But when she hears about a fan contest for her favorite fandom, she starts to rethink her rules on playing it safe.
The story of three friends, two love stories, and one convention, Queens of Geek is a fun, feminist love letter to geek culture and finding the courage to be yourself.
5. When My Heart Joins the Thousand by A. J. Steiger (Autism, Chronic Illness)
Alvie Fitz doesn’t fit in, and she doesn’t care. She’s spent years swallowing meds and bad advice from doctors and social workers. Adjust, adapt. Pretend to be normal. It sounds so easy.
If she can make it to her eighteenth birthday without any major mishaps, she’ll be legally emancipated. Free. But if she fails, she’ll become a ward of the state and be sent back to the group home. All she wants is to be left alone to spend time with her friend, Chance, the one-winged hawk at the zoo where she works. Humans are overrated anyway.
Then she meets Stanley, a boy who might be even stranger than she is. A boy who walks with a cane, who turns up every day with a new injury, whose body seems as fragile as glass. Without even meaning to, she finds herself getting close to him. But Alvie remembers what happened to the last person she truly cared about. With her past stalking her with every step, Alvie must make the choice between facing the enemy inside her or losing her chance at happiness after all.
6. Chaos Theory by Nic Stone (Bipolar Disorder)
Scars exist to remind us of what we’ve survived.
DETACHED
Since Shelbi enrolled at Windward Academy as a senior and won’t be there very long, she hasn’t bothered making friends. What her classmates don’t know about her can’t be used to hurt her–you know, like it did at her last school.
WASTED
Andy Criddle is not okay. At all.
He’s had far too much to drink.
Again. Which is bad.
And things are about to get worse.
When Shelbi sees Andy at his lowest, she can relate. So she doesn’t resist reaching out. And there’s no doubt their connection has them both seeing stars . . . but the closer they get, the more the past threatens to pull their universes apart.
#1 New York Times bestselling author Nic Stone delivers a tour de force about living with grief, prioritizing mental health, and finding love amid the chaos.
7. Finding Balance by Kati Gardner (Cancer, Limb Difference)
Jase Ellison doesn’t remember having acute lymphocytic leukemia when he was three years old. His cancer diagnosis only enters his mind twice a year: For his yearly check-up at the oncology clinic and when he attends Camp Chemo in the summer. No one in his “real life” knows about his past, especially at Atlanta West Prep, and it’s his mission to keep it that way. Mari Manos has never been able to hide her cancer survivorship, choosing bright pink crutches for her daily use after losing part of her leg to cancer. She loves Camp Chemo, even developing a small crush on fellow camper Jase, because here, Mari knows she’ll never get “the look” or have to explain her amputation to others.
After the summer ends, Jase learns that Mari is transferring to his school. The last thing he wants is for Mari to share the secrets of his past, but avoiding her isn’t an option either as he can’t deny their growing connection to one another. Mari just wants to be looked at as a girl, a person, and not only known for her disability. As the two begin to fall harder for one another, they’ll have to grapple with the question: How do you move on from cancer when the world won’t let you?
8. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green (Cancer)
Despite the tumor-shrinking medical miracle that has bought her a few years, Hazel has never been anything but terminal, her final chapter inscribed upon diagnosis.
But when a gorgeous plot twist named Augustus Waters suddenly appears at Cancer Kid Support Group, Hazel’s story is about to be completely rewritten.
A love story of epic proportions, The Fault in Our Stars is a funny, heartbreaking, and inspiring story of what it means to fall in love—despite knowing the ending—and what it means to be truly alive.
9. How to Dance by Jason B. Dutton (Cerebral Palsy)
Nick Freeman works hard as the star of the weekly karaoke night at his bar, hoping his singing talent, quick wit, and winning smile will distract from his cerebral palsy. But one night at the bar, watching a professional dancer light up the dance floor with her boyfriend, he realizes that entertaining strangers will never give him a fraction of the joy he sees in this woman’s eyes.
When Hayley Burke notices Nick’s reaction to her dancing, she urges him to acknowledge his passion and try a few moves himself–only to be mortified when she realizes Nick can only walk with the aid of a metal walker.
As Nick and Hayley fumble through misunderstanding into friendship, Hayley begins to enjoy Nick’s company more than that of her self-centered boyfriend. Nick tries to fight his attraction to Hayley, believing she deserves a dance partner who can move like her boyfriend does–but as Hayley and Nick continue to find their rhythm together, she shows him that “dancing” is about so much more than moving your feet.
In this fresh-voiced and utterly charming debut novel, Jason B. Dutton takes readers on a swoon-filled journey as two lost souls learn that neither physical disability nor emotional scars disqualify us from finding beauty, validation, and love amidst the chaos of being human.
10. Where You See Yourself by Claire Forrest (Cerebral Palsy)
Where You See Yourself combines an unforgettable coming-of-age tale and a swoon-worthy romance in this story about a girl who’s determined to follow her dreams.
By the time Effie Galanos starts her senior year, it feels like she’s already been thinking about college applications for an eternity–after all, finding a college that will be the perfect fit and be accessible enough for Effie to navigate in her wheelchair presents a ton of considerations that her friends don’t have to worry about.
What Effie hasn’t told anyone is that she already knows exactly what school she has her heart set on: a college in NYC with a major in Mass Media & Society that will set her up perfectly for her dream job in digital media. She’s never been to New York, but paging through the brochure, she can picture the person she’ll be there, far from the Minneapolis neighborhood where she’s lived her entire life. When she finds out that Wilder (her longtime crush) is applying there too, it seems like one more sign from the universe that it’s the right place for her.
But it turns out that the universe is full of surprises. As Effie navigates her way through a year of admissions visits, senior class traditions, internal and external ableism, and a lot of firsts–and lasts–she starts to learn that sometimes growing up means being open to a world of possibilities you never even dreamed of. And maybe being more than just friends with Wilder is one of those dreams…
11. Love Letters for Joy by Melissa See (Cerebral Palsy)
Less than a year away from graduation, seventeen-year-old Joy is too busy overachieving to be worried about relationships. She’s determined to be Caldwell Prep’s first disabled valedictorian. And she only has one person to beat, her academic rival Nathaniel.
But it’s senior year and everyone seems to be obsessed with pairing up. One of her best friends may be developing feelings for her and the other uses Caldwell’s anonymous love-letter writer to snag the girl of her dreams. Joy starts to wonder if she has missed out on a quintessential high school experience. She is asexual, but that’s no reason she can’t experience first love, right?
She writes to Caldwell Cupid to help her sort out these new feelings and, over time, finds herself falling for the mysterious voice behind the letters. But falling in love might mean risking what she wants most, especially when the letter-writer turns out to be the last person she would ever expect.
12. You, Me, and Our Heartstrings by Melissa See (Cerebral Palsy)
What if the whole world was watching while you fell in love for the first time?
Daisy and Noah have the same plan: use the holiday concert to land a Julliard audition. But when they’re chosen to play a duet for the concert, they worry that their differences will sink their chances.
Noah, a cello prodigy from a long line of musicians, wants to stick to tradition. Daisy, a fiercely independent disabled violinist, is used to fighting for what she wants and likes to take risks. But the two surprise each other when they play. They fall perfectly in tune.
After their performance goes viral, the rest of the country falls for them just as surely as they’re falling for each other. But viral fame isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. No one seems to care about their talent or their music at all. People have rewritten their love story into one where Daisy is an inspiration for overcoming her cerebral palsy and Noah is a saint for seeing past it.
Daisy is tired of her disability being the only thing people see about her, and all of the attention sends Noah’s anxiety disorder into high speed. They can see their dream coming closer than it’s ever been before. But is the cost suddenly too high?
13. A Fragile Enchantment by Allison Saft (Chronic Illness)
Niamh Ó Conchobhair has never let herself long for more. The magic in her blood that lets her stitch emotions and memories into fabric is the same magic that will eventually kill her. Determined to spend the little time she has left guaranteeing a better life for her family, Niamh jumps at the chance to design the wardrobe for a royal wedding in the neighboring kingdom of Avaland.
But Avaland is far from the fairytale that she imagined. While young nobles attend candlelit balls and elegant garden parties, unrest brews amid the working class. The groom himself, Kit Carmine, is prickly, abrasive, and begrudgingly being dragged to the altar as a political pawn. But when Niamh and Kit grow closer, an unlikely friendship blossoms into something more–until an anonymous gossip columnist starts buzzing about their chemistry, promising to leave them alone only if Niamh helps to uncover the royal family’s secrets. The rot at the heart of Avaland runs deep, but exposing it could risk a future she never let herself dream of, and a love she never thought possible.
14. Reggie and Delilah’s Year of Falling by Elise Bryant (Chronic Migraines, Dyslexia)
Delilah always keeps her messy, gooey insides hidden behind a wall of shrugs and yeah, whatevers. She goes with the flow—which is how she ends up singing in her friends’ punk band as a favor, even though she’d prefer to hide at the merch table.
Reggie is a D&D Dungeon Master and self-declared Blerd. He spends his free time leading quests and writing essays critiquing the game under a pseudonym, keeping it all under wraps from his disapproving family.
These two, who have practically nothing in common, meet for the first time on New Year’s Eve. And then again on Valentine’s Day. And then again on St. Patrick’s Day. It’s almost like the universe is pushing them together for a reason.
Delilah wishes she were more like Reggie—open about what she likes and who she is, even if it’s not cool. Except . . . it’s all a front. Reggie is just role-playing someone confident. The kind of guy who could be with a girl like Delilah.
As their holiday meetings continue, the two begin to fall for each other. But what happens once they realize they’ve each fallen for a version of the other that doesn’t really exist?
15. Five Feet Apart by Rachael Lippincott with Mikki Daughtry and Tobias Iaconis (Cystic Fibrosis)
Stella Grant likes to be in control—even though her totally out of control lungs and cystic fibrosis have sent her in and out of the hospital most of her life. At this point, what Stella needs to control most is keeping herself away from anyone or anything that might pass along an infection and jeopardize the possibility of a lung transplant. Six feet apart. No exceptions.
The only thing Will Newman wants to be in control of is getting out of this hospital. He couldn’t care less about his treatments, or a fancy new clinical drug trial. Soon, he’ll turn eighteen and then he’ll be able to unplug all these machines and actually go see the world, not just its hospitals.
Will’s exactly what Stella needs to stay away from. If he so much as breathes on Stella she could lose her spot on the transplant list. Either one of them could die. The only way to stay alive is to stay apart. But suddenly six feet doesn’t feel like safety. It feels like punishment. What if they could steal back just a little bit of the space their broken lungs have stolen from them? Would five feet apart really be so dangerous if it stops their hearts from breaking too?
16. A Quiet Kind of Thunder by Sara Barnard (Deafness/Hard of Hearing, Mutism)
Steffi doesn’t talk, but she has so much to say. Rhys can’t hear, but he can listen.
Steffi has been a selective mute for most of her life. The condition’s name has always felt ironic to her, because she certainly does not “select” not to speak. In fact, she would give anything to be able to speak as easily and often as everyone around her can. She suffers from crippling anxiety, and uncontrollably, in most situations simply can’t open her mouth to get out the words.
Steffi’s been silent for so long that she feels completely invisible.
But Rhys, the new boy at school, sees her. He’s deaf, and her knowledge of basic sign language means that she’s assigned to help him acclimate. To Rhys, it doesn’t matter that Steffi doesn’t talk. As they find ways to communicate, Steffi discovers that she does have a voice, and that she’s falling in love with the one person who makes her feel brave enough to use it. But as she starts to overcome a lifelong challenge, she’ll soon confront questions about the nature of her own identity and the very essence of what it is to know another person.
17. Give Me a Sign by Anna Sortino (Deafness/Hard of Hearing)
Jenny Han meets CODA in this big-hearted YA debut about first love and Deaf pride at a summer camp.
Lilah is stuck in the middle. At least, that’s what having a hearing loss seems like sometimes–when you don’t feel “deaf enough” to identify as Deaf or hearing enough to meet the world’s expectations. But this summer, Lilah is ready for a change.
When Lilah becomes a counselor at a summer camp for the deaf and blind, her plan is to brush up on her ASL. Once there, she also finds a community. There are cute British lifeguards who break hearts but not rules, a YouTuber who’s just a bit desperate for clout, the campers Lilah’s responsible for (and overwhelmed by)–and then there’s Isaac, the dreamy Deaf counselor who volunteers to help Lilah with her signing.
Romance was never on the agenda, and Lilah’s not positive Isaac likes her that way. But all signs seem to point to love. Unless she’s reading them wrong? One thing’s for sure: Lilah wanted change, and things here . . . they’re certainly different than what she’s used to.
18. Loveboat Reunion by Abigail Hing Wen (Dyslexia)
Sophie Ha and Xavier Yeh have what some would call a tumultuous past.
Hearts were broken, revenge was plotted—but at least they’re friends now. They left the drama behind them back in Taipei—at their summer program, Loveboat—forever.
Now that fall is here, they’re focusing on what really matters. Sophie is determined to be the best student Dartmouth’s ever had. Xavier just wants to stay under his overbearing father’s radar, collect his trust fund when he turns eighteen, and concentrate on what makes him happy.
But the world doesn’t seem to want either to succeed. Sophie’s college professor thinks her first major project is “too feminine.” Xavier’s father gives him an ultimatum: finish high school or be cut off from his inheritance.
Then Sophie and Xavier find themselves on a wild, nonstop Loveboat reunion, hatching a joint plan to take control of their futures. Can they succeed together . . . or are they destined to combust?
19. Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute by Talia Hibbert (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder)
Bradley Graeme is pretty much perfect. He’s a star football player, manages his OCD well (enough), and comes out on top in all his classes . . . except the ones he shares with his ex-best friend, Celine.
Celine Bangura is conspiracy-theory-obsessed. Social media followers eat up her takes on everything from UFOs to holiday overconsumption–yet, she’s still not cool enough for the popular kids’ table. Which is why Brad abandoned her for the in-crowd years ago. (At least, that’s how Celine sees it.)
These days, there’s nothing between them other than petty insults and academic rivalry. So when Celine signs up for a survival course in the woods, she’s surprised to find Brad right beside her.
Forced to work as a team for the chance to win a grand prize, these two teens must trudge through not just mud and dirt but their messy past. And as this adventure brings them closer together, they begin to remember the good bits of their history. But has too much time passed . . . or just enough to spark a whole new kind of relationship?
20. Under Rose-Tainted Skies by Louise Gornall (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder)
Norah has agoraphobia and OCD. While using a stick to snag grocery bags left on the porch, she meets Luke. He’s sweet and funny, and he just caught her fishing for groceries. Because of course he did. As their friendship grows deeper, Norah fears she’s being selfish. Doesn’t Luke deserve a normal girl—one who isn’t so screwed up?
Under Rose-Tainted Skies is a love story set against the backdrop of an all consuming mental illness that will leave readers rooting for Norah as she struggles to face her own demons.
21. Every Time You Go Away by Abigail Johnson (Paraplegia)
Perfect for fans of Jennifer Niven, Abigail Johnson draws a searing and lyrical portrait of grief, forgiveness, and the kind of love that blooms in the aftermath.
Eight years ago, Ethan and Rebecca met, two troublemaking kids sharing secrets and first kisses in a tree house, until Ethan’s mom returned to take him away. Each and every visit, his only goodbye was a flower on Rebecca’s windowsill.
Four years ago, Ethan left for the last time to take care of his mother, who has struggled with addiction his whole life.
Two years ago, Rebecca was in a car accident that killed her father. She’s been learning to navigate life as a wheelchair user ever since.
Now, they discover if their hardships have torn them apart…or will bring them closer than ever.
22. Sick Kids in Love by Hannah Moskowit (Rheumatoid Arthritis, Chronic Illness)
Isabel has one rule: no dating. It’s easier, it’s safeer, and it’s better. . . for the other person. Because Isabel has issues. She’s got secrets. And she’s got rheumatoid arthritis. But then she meets another sick kid. He’s got a chronic illness Isabel’s never heard of, something she can’t even pronounce. He understands what it means to be sick. He understands her more than her healthy friends. He understands her more than her own father who’s a doctor. He’s gorgeous, fun, and foul-mouthed. And totally into her.
But Isabel has one rule: no dating. It’s complicated, it’s dangerous, and it’s never felt better to consider breaking that rule for him.