An easily-digestible young adult story that is moving and thoughtful. I really enjoyed this read.
The relationships in this book are great and the disability representation is also very good.

The First Thing About by Chaz Hayden is one of those books that as soon as I read the synopsis I knew I had to read it. There aren’t enough books about disabled teenagers, especially those who are severely disabled, use wheelchairs and/or require a nurse to accompany them to school, and too often they’re written by non-disabled authors. Hayden has the same condition as his protagonist Harris, spinal muscular atrophy and his first-hand experience takes The First Thing About You from being a good novel to an exceptional one.

You can tell Hayden’s drawn on his experiences because there are just some things you can’t make up. Every disabled person has a list of them, as do the families of any disabled or ill children who have had to battle the education system. There are a lot of scenes like that in The First Thing About You as Harris and his mother, Claire, do battle with his new school who make a lot of promises to support him and fail spectacularly at getting him at one of them. There’s a particular scene involving a nurse who accompanies Harris for a day to see how they get along, and she does something that has Harris quickly telling mom Claire that it’s not going to work out. You’re probably thinking of all the things a bad nurse could do at this point, and I can assure you, what she actually does is probably not on your list.

I’m not going to say that Harris is just a “normal” kid because he’s not, and he is well aware of that. For a start, no one else has to have their mom go to school with them because the agency hasn’t been able to find a suitable nurse for Harris yet. That’s every teenager’s worse nightmare and that doesn’t change whether you’re disabled or not. Harris’ life is different, and Hayden doesn’t shy away from showing that, but he also excels in showing that Harris is a teenage boy. He’s just as nervous about starting a new school as anyone else would be, and he’s determined that it’s a fresh start. He even has the perfect get to know you question; “what is your favourite colour?”. Everyone has a favourite colours and Harris knows that colours can tell you a lot about a person.

So when a cute girl keeps crossing his path and refuses to tell him what her favourite colour is, Harris is equally confused, worried and smitten. The more time he spends with Nory, the more he likes her, however, his knowledge of colours tells him that if her favourite colour is something too close to his favourite, blue, then their relationship won’t work out.

Just as Harris is trying to navigate high school, friendship and teenage love, his new nurse Miranda comes into his life. A nursing student, Miranda used to go to Harris’ high school and has all the inside scoop about the teachers. She’s young and fun, nothing like any nurse he has ever had before. She sees him struggling to work out what is happening with Nory, and he sees her wanting to become the best nurse she can be. The two of them make a pact; she’ll teach him about girls, and he’ll teach her to be a nurse.

I want to emphasise now that The First Thing About You does not turn into a carer/disabled person romance trope nor does anything inappropriate happen. The role Miranda plays in this book is as a bridge between adulthood and adolescence, as someone who is taking their steps out of one world and into the other. As the synopsis suggests, Miranda has her own story, and it’s complicated. She’s been through a lot and when she meets Harris she hasn’t worked through them. While she helps Harris in many ways, this is also a book about the harm that we can do to others if we don’t look after ourselves first.

One of the things I liked most about The First Thing About was the way it explored family dynamics. I’ve mentioned Harris’ mom Claire a few times already, and she is a big part of this novel. Hayden does a great job of showing how complex people are with his writing, and this particularly shows in how he writes Claire. As I said Claire accompanies Harris to school when a nurse isn’t available and while she is worried and panicked like a normal mom outside of school, when she’s at school she’s Claire, not mom. She understands what it would do to Harris if people knew his mom was at school with him.

There are times in the book when her frustration with Harris’ school resonated deeply with me, and then there were times when I felt she crossed the line. Those were the moments when I recognised an adult struggling, a mother who was fighting a broken system in a new city alone as her husband’s new job is taking up many more hours than either of them expected. While I understood all of that it didn’t excuse the pressure she was putting on her fifteen-year-old son to deal with the school bureaucracy or talk to his nurse about running late. Claire isn’t a bad mother, she’s an imperfect one, and I appreciated that Hayden showed what the relationship between a disabled person and a carer relative is like. It’s frustrating, it’s messy, and it’s still filled with love and ultimately that is what shines through in The First Thing About You.

Harris’ family feature a lot in The First Thing About. Whether it’s in the form of family dinners, weekend football game days or family outings. At first glance they seem to have a great relationship, however, over the course of the book it becomes obvious that’s not the case. Harris’ dad Jay is working a lot, and his brother Ollie is avoiding questions about his new school. By the end of the book Harris recognises that his relationship with his brother needs work, from his end. He’s changed a lot from the Harris we meet at the start, and it’s the people that he meets along the way that helped him step outside his comfort zone, to try new things and to not judge people by their choice of colour.

The way Hayden utilises colour in The First Thing About You is brilliant. It starts as a way for Harris to get through the difficult times when he’s younger, to connect with people and Hayden delves into how something that originally helped Harris has begun to limit his interactions with people. Rather than connecting with people he shies away from people based on what their favourite colour says about them. When Nory refuses to give him that information it conflicts with what he knows; people always have a favourite colour (mine are purple and teal if you’re wondering, like a typical libra I can’t pick just one!). She’s an enigma, her favourite colour a mystery and as their relationship develops Harris begins to understand that maybe he doesn’t need to know what her favourite colour is after all.

The First Thing About is a fantastic novel that will make you laugh, cry, fill your heart with joy and equally make you scream in frustration at ableism existing in this world. Disabled readers will particularly appreciate Harris’ tongue in cheek commentary and sarcasm as Hayden delivers this classic boy-in-a-wheelchair meets girl love story with just the right mix of humour. This has quickly gone on my recommended list and I would definitely recommend looking to see what Hayden releases next!

I didn't realise this wasn't available as send to kindle. Therefore I cannot read it. Will pick up a copy elsewhere at some point and review properly then.

Harris is a fifteen-year-old doing his best to be a normal teenager. The only problem? He has spinal muscular atrophy, rendering him wheelchair-bound, which is something that a lot of people cannot see past. As Harris notes, 'I would never be normal in the eyes of society'.

Nevertheless, Harris doesn't let society's misconceptions stop him from making the most out of his high school experience. He makes friends, goes to parties, and pursues the object of his affections, all while discovering that there are people out there who can accept him for who he is.

Hayden has hit the mark with this debut novel by tapping into his own lived experience (Hayden has the same condition as Harris) to create an authentic narrative voice. An abled person writing this could have easily fallen into the trap of relying on stereotypes, or reducing the disabled character to 'inspiration porn'. This is why it's important that marginalised and under-represented people are given a platform to tell their own stories.

Hayden shows us what it is like to live with a condition that renders you different to others, but also highlights the commonalities we share that make us human. At its heart, this is a story about what it means to be a teenager searching for acceptance and a sense of belonging, which anyone can relate to.

Many thanks to Walker Books and NetGalley for providing me with a Digital Review Copy.

The First Thing About You is out on 6th September 2022.