My Unexpected Life: Finding Balance Beyond My Diagnosis - Hardback

"A refreshing coming-of-age memoir exploring young love, college, and careers while navigating a progressing disability."-Independent Book ReviewJennifer Gasner is seventeen when her dreams are shattered overnight.Receiving a diagnosis of Friedreich's ataxia, a rare genetic neuromuscular disease, means she must prepare herself for a life of loss. When she starts college, she can still walk on her own, but as her disease progresses, she spirals further into sadness, denial, and alienation. She turns to alcohol and a toxic relationship to distract her from what she refuses to accept-that her body, her self-esteem, and her hope for her future are failing.When Jennifer develops a friendship with rock star Dave Matthews, her outlook changes. She begins to understand that using a wheelchair doesn't mean her life is over. In fact, when she discovers disability culture, she realizes it's not her body that needs to be fixed but her assumptions about being disabled.In her captivating memoir, My Unexpected Life: Finding Balance Beyond My Diagnosis, Jennifer invites you into her world, where she must learn to view her changing body with compassion and choose gratitude over anger as she finds strength and acceptance in a whole new way of moving through life.Hollywood Book Festival Awards Honorable Mention for biography/autobiographyNotable 100 Book, 2023 Shelf Unbound Best Indie Book CompetitionGold Book Award, Literary TitanApril 2024 Author of the Month, San Diego Central LibraryRed Ribbon, The Wishing Shelf Book Awards

• | Author: Jennifer Gasner
• | Publisher: Acorn Publishing
• | Publication Date: Sep 07, 2023
• | Number of Pages: 304 pages
• | Binding: Hardback or Cased Book
• | ISBN-13: 9798885280327