NarratAbility
A Directory of Books with Chronic Illness, Mental Health & Disability Representation
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NarratAbility is a searchable directory of books featuring chronic illness, mental health, and disability representation. As of its launch in July 2026, it has over 1500+ books in the directory.
This database has been a genuine labour of love. Every entry has been researched and curated manually, with well over 300 hours spent building it so far. It’s a living directory, which means it is continually growing and improving, and I hope it continues to grow for years to come, with new books, new voices, and new stories that deserve to be discovered.
I hope NarratAbility becomes the go-to resource for readers, reviewers, educators, researchers, and authors looking to discover stories that engage meaningfully with health, illness, disability, and neurodivergence.
How NarratAbility came to be…
During one of the most difficult periods of my own health journey, I found myself in the exhausting limbo of hospital visits, lab tests, and diagnostic uncertainty. I didn’t have answers. I didn’t have a name for what I was experiencing. And while reading, one night, I found a character experiencing the same symptoms and (later diagnosed with) the same condition as me. I remember crying over that book at three in the morning because, for the first time, I felt understood and seen. There was an immense comfort in seeing an experience that had felt so isolating reflected back at me on the page. It reminded me that literature doesn’t just entertain us; it can make us feel seen when we need it most. It felt a lot like someone had taken a boulder off my shoulder.
That book, of course, has stayed with me.
It also deepened an academic interest I’ve had in the ways literature represents health, illness, disability, and the many different ways we move through the world. The personal and the scholarly have always been intertwined for me, and NarratAbility really sits at that intersection.
Over the past year, I’ve watched countless readers ask for recommendations online. During Mental Health Awareness Month, Disability Pride Month, and many other moments throughout the year, my feeds have been filled with people searching for books that reflected their experiences.
Sometimes the requests were incredibly specific: a particular chronic illness, a specific disability, a certain identity. Other times, people were looking for memoirs, accessible non-fiction, or simply a novel that would help them better understand someone else’s experience.
Finding those books, however, often meant relying on fragmented recommendation threads or social media algorithms that decide, seemingly at random, what we get to see.
I kept thinking: wouldn’t it be wonderful if there were simply one place to search?
A place where you could filter by genre, by condition, by disability, or simply browse and build your next reading list without hoping an algorithm surfaces the right recommendation.
That’s the idea of NarratAbility.
At the same time, I hope this database serves a broader purpose. While I absolutely want it to help people find stories that reflect their own lived experiences, I also hope it encourages readers who don’t personally share those experiences to seek these books out. Reading has always been one of our greatest tools for building empathy, and disability, chronic illness, and mental health stories deserve to be read not only by the people who live them, but by everyone.
Welcome to NarratAbility. I hope it helps you find the book you didn’t know you were looking for, and the ones you were 🙂
You were reading a note from Kritika Narula, the curator of this database.
Get in touch!
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The database currently includes each book’s title, author, genre(s), and the chronic illness, disability, mental health condition, or other representation featured in the story for over 1600 books
At its heart, the database is simple. You’ll be able to search and filter books by condition, disability, genre, publication year, and more. You’ll also find information about
- Whether I — World Review of Books – have reviewed the book (in which case the link will show up so you can read the review), or interviewed the author,
- whether it’s independently or small-press published, and
- whether the representation is OwnVoices, that is, written from the author’s lived experience of that condition.
Browsing the database
“The rules of capitalisation are so unfair to words in the middle.”
– Paper Towns by John Green
By default, the table shows entries in random order (I did not default to alphabetical, as that would skew the discovery of some books over the others)
- You can sort by alphabetical order (or reverse) for book title or author, and chronological (or reverse) for publication year.
- By default, the table displays 100 rows at a time, but you can choose to show more – either the next 100 or all 1500+ at once.
- You can also use the Randomiser button (it’s my favourite) if you want the experience to feel like a library.
Searching and filtering
If you’re looking for something specific, there are several ways to narrow your search:
- Use the search bar to find a particular book title or author or condition.
- Filter by genre using the checklist dropdown.
- Filter by representation using the checklist dropdown. You can select multiple filters at once to find books that match exactly what you’re looking for.
- You can also tap on the tags for genre or representation and it will immediately show the list of books with same tags, To go back to your previous list, just tap again.
A tip on using the representation tags
The representation tags have been designed with searchability as the primary goal rather than as a medical or educational classification system.
This means you may notice overlapping tags. For example, a single book might be tagged with Post-Injury, Chronic Pain, and Amputation. These are listed separately because readers may be searching for any one of those experiences independently.
Similarly, you may see both broad and specific tags used together: for example, Neurodivergence and ADHD. This is intentional. It does not mean these are being presented as separate or equivalent medical categories. Instead, it ensures that someone searching broadly for neurodivergent representation and someone looking specifically for ADHD representation will both find the same book.
Across more than 1,500 books, it is not always possible to verify the most specific diagnosis represented in every story. Some books also feature undiagnosed or intentionally unspecified conditions. Using both broad and specific tags helps make the database more inclusive, searchable, and useful, while reducing the chances of relevant books being missed.
Suggest an update/new book/corrections
You can
- suggest corrections or updates to an existing entry, or
- recommend a book that isn’t currently included in the database.
- leave feedback!
Submissions are reviewed from the backend, and approved additions and updates are typically published weekly.
CURATOR’S NOTE: PLEASE READ
Before you explore the NarratAbility directory, I’d like you to move with empathy. Disability, chronic illness, and mental health exist on a spectrum, and the language people use to describe their experiences is deeply personal, nuanced, and often evolving.
The purpose of this directory is simple: whatever language you use to describe an experience, you should be able to find the books you’re looking for. To make that possible, I’ve used a broad and thoughtful tagging system throughout the database so that, regardless of the terminology you personally use or identify with, you can discover the representation you’re seeking.
You may come across labels or categories that you personally wouldn’t use (and that’s okay—they’re there to improve discoverability, not to make definitive statements about anyone’s identity, experience, or preferred language). I simply ask that you approach the directory in good faith and recognise that those same tags may be the very terms another reader uses to find the stories they’re looking for.
This database is, and always will be, a living project. As it grows, I’ll continue revisiting entries, carrying out deeper research, speaking with authors where possible, closely reading books, and learning from community feedback to refine, improve, and expand the tagging system over time.
Get in touch!
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Have a question or want to chat about the directory?
Write to me at worldreviewofbooks@gmail.com
I read all 1500+ of them! Just kidding.
This directory would not have been possible without the many, many readers and bookish content creators on Threads and Instagram, book bloggers, disability/mental health/chronic illness advocates, literary writers, who have shared their lists and recommendations on the theme.
- Many bookstores and libraries have released their vetted lists on specific representations in books.
- Charities and nonprofits have shared their recommended reading lists on these topics and health conditions.
- Multiple journals and academic works have looked at fiction and nonfiction writing on health and illness.
- Bookish social media platforms like Goodreads, StoryGraph, Pagebound, and Fable have hosted booklists, tags or book clubs with dedicated themes.
I’ve consulted all these to add entries to this database.
I have manually curated these, and added genres and representation tags to make them searchable. In the first instance, this was upwards of 300 hours of work. As an ongoing exercise, I will keep dedicating time on a weekly basis to update based on the inputs from community, readers, and authors. Use this form!
Absolutely.
NarratAbility is intended to be a living directory rather than a finished project. I’ll be reviewing submissions, corrections and recommendations every week, vetting them before they’re added to the database. In most cases, new additions and updates should go live within the same week, although larger batches may naturally take a little longer.
You can submit new books, corrections, or additional information through the submission form, or simply reach out to me directly. Community knowledge is one of the biggest strengths of this project, and I’d love for readers, authors and publishers to help keep it as comprehensive and accurate as possible.
Alongside adding new books, I’ll also continue revisiting existing entries to refine tags, improve accuracy, and incorporate new research as my understanding evolves.
You can submit a recommendation through the submission form at the bottom of the directory, or use this form directly.
Once I receive your submission, I’ll research and vet the information before adding it to the database. If you leave your email address, I’ll also let you know once the listing has gone live.
Thank you for taking the time to tell me.
Accuracy matters enormously to me, and I genuinely appreciate corrections.
You can use this form to report any errors or suggest updates. Once I’ve verified the information, I’ll update the listing. If you’ve left your contact details, I’ll also let you know once the changes have been made.
I do, and I have perhaps a few too many.
Right now, NarratAbility functions as a searchable directory. Over time, I’d love for individual books to have their own dedicated pages exploring representation in much greater depth: discussions of how a condition is portrayed, notable passages and quotations, links to reviews, conversations around the representation, and perhaps even contributions from readers and authors themselves.
That’s a much bigger project, and certainly not something I’m tackling just yet. But it’s the long-term vision: for NarratAbility to become not just a directory, but a growing archive and conversation around disability, chronic illness and mental health in literature.
I also want to interview the authors listed in the directory over … a podcast, maybe?
Right now, NarratAbility is a one-person project.
I’m Kritika Narula, and I’m the sole curator of the directory. World Review of Books, where NarratAbility is hosted, is also currently a solo project.
I’m an avid reader, literary reviewer and essayist, and you can also find my work at Masters Review, Sanity by Tanmoy, Kitaab, and Usawa Literary Review.
My interest in this project comes from both lived experience and a long-standing interest in how literature represents health, illness, disability and care. My hope is that NarratAbility contributes, in however small a way, to building a lasting literary culture around these stories.
Great question!
We absolutely should keep sharing recommendations on social media.
The problem is that social media wasn’t built to function as an archive.
Algorithms change. Platforms disappear. Search functions are limited. A brilliant recommendation thread can be almost impossible to find a few months later.
I wanted a place that existed independently of those platforms: a permanent, searchable resource that anyone could bookmark and return to whenever they were looking for a particular kind of representation.
The directory isn’t meant to replace book communities. If anything, I hope it complements them. I hope that you’ll discover books here, take those recommendations back to your reading groups, book clubs and online communities, and continue the conversation there.
Help me keep the directory running on this website
Maybe!
I’m still figuring out what bringing other people into this project might look like, but I’m absolutely open to exploring ways NarratAbility can become a community effort in the future.
In the meantime, the biggest way you can help is by championing the project.
Whenever you see someone looking for recommendations featuring disability, chronic illness or mental health representation, point them towards NarratAbility. Share the directory, recommend it, cite it as a resource, and help more readers discover it. Word of mouth will make a much bigger difference than you might think.
I’d love to hear from you.
You’ll find all my contact details on the About WRB page. The best way to reach me is by email. You can also send me a message on Threads, although the directory work will be attended to fastest over email.
If you’ve read till the end, come say hi on Threads, and ask me the name of the book that started it all for me!
These aren't dated commitments — just the goals we're working toward.
🌱 Always in Progress
These are the things that will continue throughout NarratAbility’s lifetime.
- Adding newly published books.
- Discovering older, translated and independently published books that deserve to be included.
- Reviewing community submissions.
- Correcting and improving existing entries.
- Refining tags and improving discoverability as language and understanding evolve.
Phase 1: Strengthening the Database
The first priority is making every existing entry as complete and accurate as possible.
This includes:
- Verifying representation tags.
- Confirming Own Voices information wherever possible.
- Identifying independent and small-press publications.
- Expanding metadata for each listing.
The goal isn’t simply to have a large database—it is to have one that readers can trust.
Phase 2: Building a Literary Conversation
A database tells you what exists.
The next step is exploring why it matters.
I’d love to interview authors—particularly Own Voices authors—about writing illness, disability and mental health. How did they approach representation? What research did they undertake? What conversations shaped the work?.
How does a podcast sound?
Phase 3: Spotlight Collections & Deep Dives
Once the foundations are stronger, I’d like to begin curating focused collections.
Rather than only growing wider, NarratAbility will also grow deeper in the themes it catalogues.
Examples might include:
- Queerness & Disability
- Disability in the Classics
- Medical Memoirs
- Books About Caregiving
These collections would bring together recommendations, essays, interviews and reading guides around particular themes.
Phase 4: Individual Book Pages
Possibly the most ambitious of all plans.
Eventually, I’d like every book in NarratAbility to have its own dedicated page.
Instead of a single database entry, each title could include:
- a fuller discussion of its representation
- notable passages and quotations
- links to reviews
- interviews with the author (where available)
- related books
- community reflections from readers with lived experience
- notes about potentially harmful or contested portrayals
One idea I’m especially excited about is developing a representation barometer. Rather than simply asking whether a book includes disability or chronic illness, it could capture how readers with lived experience responded to that portrayal. Not as a definitive score or verdict, but as a way of reflecting the diversity and nuance of readers’ experiences.
Phase 5: Reading Between the Lines
Not every book names a diagnosis.
Many older works—and even contemporary ones—depict experiences that readers today might recognise as disability, chronic illness or mental health conditions without using modern language.
I’d love to explore these books too, acknowledging both the possibilities and the limitations of retrospective interpretation.
Beyond Diagnosis
One of the things I’ve learned while building NarratAbility is that not every story of illness or disability comes with a diagnosis, or even with the language to describe it.
Many memoirs and works of life writing sit in the space of diagnostic uncertainty. Characters may experience chronic pain, unexplained symptoms, medical trauma, or long-term changes to their health without ever receiving a definitive answer. Older works may describe experiences that readers today recognise but that had no established medical vocabulary at the time. Likewise, disability activists and scholars have long pointed out that lived experience doesn’t begin only once medicine assigns it a name.
NarratAbility has already begun making space for these stories through tags such as Undiagnosed, Medical Mystery, and Medical Trauma, but I see these as only the beginning.
Over time, I’d like to develop an editorial framework for recognising and organising literature that explores the experience of illness, disability, pain, care, and bodily difference even when those experiences aren’t explicitly named. This will require careful research and thoughtful editorial judgment, and I expect it to be one of the most challenging parts of the project.
But it also feels like one of the most important. Some of the most meaningful stories about health are those that exist before certainty, outside diagnosis, or beyond the language available to describe them. Those stories deserve to be discoverable too.
Phase 6: Beyond Books
NarratAbility began with literature, but stories exist everywhere.
Much further down the line, I’d love to expand into other narrative forms, including film, television, theatre, graphic novels and games, creating the same thoughtful archive for representation beyond books.