Question: What’s worse than being in a wheelchair?
Answer: Being a fuck-up in a wheelchair.

After a car accident Jarred discovers he’ll never walk again. Confined to a ‘giant roller-skate’, he finds himself with neither money nor job. Worse still, he’s forced to live back home with the father he hasn’t spoken to in ten years.

"You can't avoid every mistake. The trick is to just avoid the ones you can. That's where you need some help".

Add in a shoplifting habit, an addiction to painkillers and the fact that total strangers now treat him like he’s an idiot, it’s a recipe for self-destruction. How can he stop himself careering out of control?

As he tries to piece his life together again, he looks back over his past – the tragedy that blasted his family apart, why he ran away, the damage he’s caused himself and others – and starts to wonder whether, maybe, things don’t always have to stay broken after all.

The Coward is about hurt and forgiveness. It’s about how the world treats disabled people. And it’s about how we write and rewrite the stories we tell ourselves about our lives – and try to find a happy ending.

A great read. Well written. A book that packs a punch. Thank you to both NetGalley and the publishers for gifting me this book

[ full review onsite to come ]

this book is proving hard to get through. initially i requested the title and sent it to kindle at the very start of my netgalley life, not realizing the title would archive on its own.

coming back to read it, i decided to not look through the synopsis and dive in. the book hooked me quickly, making me realize that it was memoir instead of fiction (which i thought it was upon revisiting). as someone who has lived with and is still going through cancer treatment, i find parts of the book very difficult to get through.

the descriptions of the hospital and the feeling of longing and depression while living with a disability is so painfully accurate i had to put the book down. i am coming up on my five year cancerversary and it is no easier to get through now as it was then and, while i am so very grateful to have made it this far, this looming uncertainty lingers.

because of this, i need to put the book down. while i am doing well and in a "no evidence of disease" stage, the uncertainty of my own treatment plan weighs heavy right now.

Had been looking forward to reading this book. Sadly it wasn’t for me. It just lacked a good plot to get you excited and wanting more. It was very slow paced and never picked up

DNF'd at 52%. I was hoping for something life affirming and uplifting as per the blurbs, and perhaps that is what I would have got if I had managed to stick it out until the end, but from the first half all I got was annoyed. It was very repetitive and whiney. I listened to some of this on audio and that really didn't help with the tone of it. I did like Jack's character though which I gave an extra star for.

A bit of a harrowing read, as a possible memoir or sad story it definitely haunts you. Reminded me of a little life. Would recommend

This was a good story, I was intrigued as to what was gonna happen and I'm glad I picked it up! Want to read more from this author

Synopsis/blurb...

A BBC Two Between the Covers book club pick.

Question: what’s worse than being in a wheelchair?

Answer: being a f--k-up in a wheelchair.

After a car accident Jarred discovers he’ll never walk again. Confined to a ‘giant roller-skate’, he finds himself with neither money nor job. Worse still, he’s forced to live back home with the father he hasn’t spoken to in 10 years.

Add in a shoplifting habit, an addiction to painkillers and the fact that total strangers now treat him like he’s an idiot, it’s a recipe for self-destruction. How can he stop himself careering out of control?

As he tries to piece his life together again, he looks back over his past - the tragedy that blasted his family apart, why he ran away, the damage he’s caused himself and others - and starts to wonder whether, maybe, things don’t always have to stay broken after all.

The Coward is about hurt and forgiveness. It’s about how the world treats disabled people. And it’s about how we write and rewrite the stories we tell ourselves about our lives - and try to find a happy ending.
-----
My take...

I must admit I'm a bit unsure whether this one was a novel or a memoir given that the main character in the book bears the same name as the author. As far as a reading experience goes, I doubt it matters either way. Sad to say I didn't enjoy this one nearly as much as I had hoped to.

Jarred is 26 and in a wheelchair after a car accident that killed an old girlfriend and left him paralysed from the waist down. Our tale flip flops between Jarred present day and Jarred as a young boy of 10 dealing with the death of his mother, and Jarred as an angry teenager, repeatedly butting heads with his alcoholic father.

At 16 he runs away and has no contact with his father until the day he is discharged from hospital and unsuccessfully tries to put himself and his chair under the wheels of a lorry.

There's a lot of sadness, grief, guilt and rage present in every period of Jarred's life.

It's a difficult read in a lot of places. Jarred pre-accident and post-accident is a bit of a tool. Having thankfully survived childhood and adoloscence myself, without the either loss of a parent or by being raised by barely functioning alcoholics maybe I'm not in a position to judge others less fortunate. My own scars are superficial in comparison.

I suppose the book is brutally honest in it's portrayal of Jarred at all periods of his life. Maybe by the end there is a glimmer of hope for a brighter future and some healing. His relationship with his dad is in a better place. He actually calls him dad rather than the dismissive, Jack. His girlfriend, Sarah has helped soften him.

There's a beautiful scene where Jarred actually puts someone else ahead of himself. Sarah's brother, Marco is disabled and Jarred arranges a casino trip for the three of them. The joy this brings Marco is wondrous to behold and was the highlight of the book. Love, laughter, compassion, innocence, trust, warmth and kindness is present in abundance.

I think I liked the second half of the book a bit more than the first. Jarred post-meeting Sarah is more bearable company than previously. I still found it hard to like him though.

3 from 5

Read - February, 2022
Published - 2021
Page count - 313
Source - Net Galley reviewer site
Format - Kindle

This was a quick novel, which I enjoyed overall. The banter between Jarred and his father was funny and sad, and I liked that you weren't made to constantly feel sorry for Jarred - in fact he was quite annoying at times, which was refreshing.

It did finish really abruptly, and left me slightly unsatisfied, but a good easy read overall.

Jarred is paralysed in a car accident. He is then forced to go live with his alcoholic father who he hasn't seen for 10 years.
He tries to get his life back together.Thinking back to his teen years and his involvement in the car accident.
The book is a dark,funny and thoughtful part memoir part fiction.
Very enjoyable.

I was curious as to whether this book was memoir or fiction. As a wheelchair user myself, I could empathise with many of the ideas in the book, especially how patronising people can be to someone with a disability. I suspect the author has written this as a work of fiction, loosely based on his own experience.

Jarred wakes up in hospital following a car accident, which his girlfriend doesn't survive. He is forced to reconnect with his alcoholic father who he hasn't seen for ten years. As his story unfolds, we learn that he also lost his mother at a young age,

This was an engaging and compelling read. Alternating between the past and the present worked well. I felt invested in Jarred's journey and was willing him to make good choices which didn't always happen.

Thanks indeed to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

I didn’t twig until over halfway through that this was an autobiography. It’s not an easy read as there is so much anger and irrational behaviour. Jarred lost his Mum to an aneurysm when he was a boy, he had a dysfunctional relationship with his father, an alcoholic and by the age of 16 ran away from home. He only returned after a car accident, leaving him a paraplegic. I liked the swapping of timelines between Jarred as a boy and Jarred post accident but I have to admit I didn’t like either character. I felt the really hard parts of the story were glossed over and there wasn’t enough depth for me. Having said that, I think it is a brave thing to do to write your own history, even if it is somewhat self indulgent.

Jarred is involved in a motor accident which leaves him unable to walk and finds himself confined to a wheelchair for life. He rings his father Jack , who he has not spoken to for 10 years and asks him to pick him up from the hospital , Things don't go well and they muddle along with minimal contact, Jarred has become addicted to painkillers and shoplifts booze and stuff. He decides to try to pull himself together and starts to look back on what went wrong in his life , family tragedy and how he has treated others throughout his life and tries to get his life back on track.

didnt enjoy reading this book not straight foreward it kept back tracking and didnt keep me interested but could not leave it unfinished so read to end but not one of my best choices

I came to The Coward as fiction - it was only half way through that I twigged that the lead character, Jarred McGinnis, had the same name as the author. That led to a chilling penny-dropping moment.

We meet Jarred as he is being discharged from hospital after a life-changing accident. Jarred can no longer walk and uses a wheelchair for mobility. He has no job, no friends, no home. He lands back with Dad - who he resents as a drunkard and a neglectful parent. Jarred is rude, resentful, ungrateful and gives a clear impression that he was this way before the accident. Disability has not turned him into a saint. We see Jarred take small (metaphorical) steps to building a life, building a relationship with his father, and building social connections - often despite his own efforts to thwart the process. And there were flashbacks to a previous life which Jarred blamed himself for wrecking.

This focus on Jarred, rather than on the disability, made for a really compelling and quite startling read. It broke so many conventions of how disabled characters are portrayed. And it became clear that Jarred was not going to compete in the Paralympics, was not going to become a disability ambassador or counsel small children to steer clear of drugs. Jarred was going to adapt, but he wasn't going to change. That is why the realisation that this was autobiographical was all the more spine-tingling. The honesty and bare emotion in the way he portrayed himself was so visceral.

This can be a difficult read - especially when the reader sees Jarred making consistently poor choices. But there is also a dark humour and a human warmth underneath it all. By the end, and as the back story emerges, you almost feel for Jarred...

I absolutely devoured this glorious book. Heart wrenching at times, it was also devilishly hilarious (probably only if you have a slightly warped and dark sense of humour).

A no holds barred account of a life beset with grief, anger, addiction and f**k ups. A life irrevocably altered following an accident that left Jarred in a wheelchair, learning to live as a paraplegic. Life post accident was to say the least challenging, but actually it was the start of a healing process long overdue. I adored the relationship between Jarred and Jack, his father. And Sarah was also totally badass.

A stunning insight into the reality of disability, the power of love and the fortitude needed to overcome childhood trauma.

A great exploration of being a disabled person in America and the relationship between father and son. This book did funny and emotional very well. I'm not sure how much of this book is based on the author's own life but the themes were definitely well explored.

When I requested this book I somehow thought it's going to be a thriller? Don't ask me why, since I obviously read the blurb, lol.

Anyways, as I said while reviewing The Ghost Marriage it's always weird to rate a memoir, because you sort of rate someone's personal choices. This books is part memoir, part fiction, so I'll rate it like that.
I'm not rating Jarred's life choices, no matter if I agree with them or not.
I'm rating the writing, the pace, the general feeling.

Even though the writing is not amazing, it's very decent and I'm excited to see what the author will present in the future.
The pace was sort of disjointed at the beginning, but after I got used to it, the reading went smoothly. It's a fast read, and I read this book in like one day, staying up until 2am to finish it (which I think tells everything).

The Coward
“You can’t tell an able bodied person that being a cripple isn’t momentous. It’s impossible to accept”
I also have a disability and use a wheelchair so I felt this would give me a better understanding of the book.
Jarred is involved in a car accident which leaves him unable to walk again. He is trying to adapt to living with a disability, having no money or a job and living with his father after not speaking to him for 10 years.
This book is great and a very honest account of living with a disability. I recommend.

The story starts with a terrible accident but this accident becomes a path to reconciliation between Jarred and his father. The story hops between the present and the events that led to the breakdown in their relationship and it deals unflinchingly with teenage rebellion and the effects of alcoholism. But it never judges and offers hope as Jarred comes to terms with his past and is able to see a future.
Although the subject matter is often difficult the book itself is an uplifting read.