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Just by Looking at Him

A Novel

ebook
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From the star of Peacock's Queer as Folk and the Netflix series Special comes a "funny, tender, and beautiful" (Gary Janetti, New York Times bestselling author) novel following a gay TV writer with cerebral palsy as he fights addiction and searches for acceptance in an overwhelmingly ableist world.
Elliott appears to be living the dream as a successful TV writer with a doting boyfriend. But behind his Instagram filter of a life, he's grappling with an intensifying alcohol addiction, he can't seem to stop cheating on his boyfriend with various sex workers, and his cerebral palsy is making him feel like gay Shrek.

After falling down a rabbit hole of sex, drinking, and Hollywood backstabbing, Elliott decides to limp his way towards redemption. But facing your demons is easier said than done.

"With his singular voice and unforgettable wit" (Steven Rowley, author of The Guncle), Ryan O'Connell presents a candid, biting, and refreshingly real commentary on gay life, laugh-out-loud exploration of self, and a rare insight into life as a person with disabilities.
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    The publisher provides the following statement about the accessibility of the EPUB file supplied to OverDrive. Experiences may vary across reading systems. After borrowing the book, you may download the EPUB files to read in another reading system.

    Summary

    A simple complexity publication with some images, converted to meet EPUB Accessibility specifications of WCAG-AA level. This book contains various accessibility features such as alternative text for images, table of contents, page-list, landmark, reading order, structural navigation, and semantic structure.

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    • No information about appearance modifiability is available.

    • Not all of the content will be readable as read aloud speech or dynamic braille.

    • Has alternative text descriptions for images.

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    • The publication contains a conformance statement that it meets the EPUB Accessibility and WCAG 2 Level AA standard.

    • This publication claims to meet EPUB Accessibility 1.0 WCAG 2.0 Level AA.

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    • Table of contents to all chapters of the text via links.

    • Elements such as headings, tables, etc for structured navigation.

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    • Page breaks included

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  • Reviews

    • Library Journal

      December 1, 2021

      Though he's a successful TV writer, Eliot has problems. He's been dangerously overdrinking and cheating on his loving boyfriend with a string of sex workers, and he struggles for acceptance in a world indifferent, even hostile, to his cerebral palsy. Finally, he decides that despite it all he will find a way to triumph. From Queer as Folk actor O'Connell, the Emmy-nominated creator, writer, and star of Netflix's Special, based on his memoir.

      Copyright 2021 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

    • Publisher's Weekly

      March 28, 2022
      O’Connell navigates internalized homophobia and ableism in his hysterical debut novel (after the memoir I’m Special: And Other Lies We Tell Ourselves), a ripsnorter set in Los Angeles. Elliott, the protagonist, introduces readers to his “perfect” boyfriend, Gus, whom he increasingly resents. After almost six years together, the two are in a rut of ordering takeout, drinking natural wine, and having dissociative sex. Elliott is living with cerebral palsy, and despite having a flashy job writing for television, he can’t help but think “modern life is hell.” After an eyebrow-raising story from his boss involving hiring a sex worker, Elliott sets off on a trip of self-sabotage turned self-discovery, as he probes his relationships with sex and his body, alcohol, disability (“I work very hard to appear palatable, easy to digest, the crostini of disability”), and his father. (Some of this may sound familiar to fans of O’Connell’s Netflix series, Special.) Here, O’Connell’s revelatory and charming humor adds dimension to a character who is unapologetic about his spiraling behavior despite claiming to know better. O’Connell leaves nothing on the table, and the result reads like a zippy, traffic-dodging trip up the 101 on a blinding afternoon. Agent: Kent Wolf, Neon Literary.

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