As a regular reader of translated fiction I requested Christina Morales' novel hoping to learn more about women and disabilities in the setting of Barcelona. After a few attempts to submerge myself into their world, unfortunately, I had to give up.

The topics Morales addresses are important ones and I do realise that a political background is essential to the women's stories, but it veered too far into the details of politics for me. Additionally the writing style made it difficult for me to keep track of various characters and fully connect with any particular character. Instead I felt disconnected from the characters and in the end, also the story.

It took me a while to get into this book and to realkise which characters voice was being represented at which time, however once I got into it I really liked it and I loved the disabled representation in the book.

Easy Reading is a novel translated from Spanish that explores the lives of four cousins living together in Barcelona, all seen as disabled in some way, and the daily challenges they face in maintaining their independence. Across a range of forms, from first person narration to court reports and zines, and also the titular 'easy reading' book as a novel being written by one of the characters in an easy reading format, the stories of Angela, Patricia, Marga and Nati at a particular time in their lives are unfolded, exploring political activism, institutional structures, and forms of expression.

This is an unusual and distinctive novel which combines a range of forms and voices to get across the variety of the four protagonists and also the way structures and society are not suited to the ways they want to live and express themselves. It is not, unlike the title, an easy read, as there's lots of jumping around and getting used to the different voices and the ways that you get different parts of the picture from different characters, though once you get further into the book you do start to understand the different sections. The narrative takes a while to work out and not a huge amount happens as you get multiple perspectives on it. A lot of the book is pretty political, but there's also a lot about sexuality and desire and autonomy, and there's a lot of interesting content in the book, though at times the fact it is translated meant that some of the elements perhaps lost something, especially as it is so focused on language and forms of expression.