My Unexpected Life
My Unexpected Life: Finding Balance Beyond My Diagnosis is an award-winning, coming-of-age story about Jennifer Gasner’s diagnosis with Friedreich’s Ataxxia and meeting the challenges it brought through her sense of humor and determination.
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Praise
“The story [Gasner] tells is a moving and revealing one.”
“A refreshing coming-of-age memoir exploring young love, college, and careers while navigating a progressing disability.”
“My Unexpected Life. . .invites readers to reflect on their actions and the imperative of cultivating a world that values and embraces the diversity of human experiences.”
“Rousing account of navigating life with Friedreich’s ataxia.”
“My Unexpected Life: Finding Balance Beyond My Diagnosis” is an amazing tour de force!”
I’m an ‘80s girl.
Diagnosed with a rare progressive disability called Friedreich’s Ataxia at 17, I challenge people to see disability as a natural thing we will all go through. Disability is not to be feared and leading a fulfilling life is possible. I speak frankly about navigating a changing body, yet infuse it with laughter. It is my hope that people will see disability as another aspect of diversity and create a more inclusive world.
“I am not a snowflake. I am not a sweet, infantilizing symbol of fragility and life. I am a strong, fierce, flawed adult woman. I plan to remain that way, in life and in death.”
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Blog
Jury duty
“What is she doing that for? She shouldn’t do that in her condition!” That is how my mom’s friend reacted when she found out I had been picked to be a juror for a two-week criminal trial a month ago. “What, does she think that when you started using a wheelchair, you...
Cover Reveal and Blurb
It's official! Here is the cover of My Unexpected Life: Finding Balance Beyond My Diagnosis. It will be released on September 7, 2023. Here is the blurb... Jennifer Gasner is seventeen when her dreams are shattered overnight. Receiving a diagnosis of Friedreich’s...
The passing of Judy Heumann, disability rights activist
Where would I and the millions of others with disabilities be without Judy Heumann? I shudder to think. I was not even three when she was part of the 28-day non-violent sit-in at a federal building in San Francisco to get Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973...
More Praise
“Reading Jen Gasner’s beautiful book will forever alter your ideas, positive and negative, about what it means to be ‘normal.’ With its twists, turns, crashes, and triumphs, My Unexpected Life will transform the ways in which you regard your own life and the lives of those around you.”
“Jennifer Gasner has courageously and beautifully taken us on a journey that few have experienced. This important book delves into the inner world of living with disabilities, and it will surprise, hurt, and teach you in ways you never expected. A powerful and unforgettable story (about an incredibly gifted and amazing young woman) that will change you in all the right ways.”
“Jennifer Gasner’s My Unexpected Life: Finding Balance Beyond My Diagnosis is a powerful and extraordinary memoir of an incredible young woman, and her endeavor to recreate her self-confidence after years of denying a horrifying reality.”
“A refreshing coming-of-age memoir exploring young love, college, and careers while navigating a progressing disability.”
“Jennifer completely captures the complex game of tug-of-war we find ourselves in with the ever-changing realities of a progressive rare disease. The emotional, mental, and physical challenges are constant, yet somehow balance is found at times. And this memoir emphasizes all that makes life beautiful yet complicated. Thank you, Jen, for sharing your journey with such detail and vulnerability.”
“Overall, My Unexpected Life is a testament to the human spirit’s capacity to overcome adversity and find balance and happiness in unexpected places, and I would certainly recommend it to anyone undergoing sudden medical change who seeks to find joy and peace.”
“The honesty is refreshing, and the college experience, as it turns out, is pretty universal! It’s nice to put a smile on a story, and I am grateful that Jennifer Gasner has given us both. Very highly recommended.”
“With a lot of 1990s nostalgia, Gasner’s writings alter the view of the general population on what it means to be ‘normal.’ As far as I am concerned, she has achieved all of it with me and opened my eyes to much, much more.”
“The honesty is refreshing, and the college experience, as it turns out, is pretty universal! It’s nice to put a smile on a story, and I am grateful that Jennifer Gasner has given us both. Very highly recommended.”
“When you’ve grown up in a world that devalues disability, how do you cope with a diagnosis that says you will need a wheelchair? In My Unexpected Life, DJ Jenny G recalls what might be the soundtrack of her young adult life as she details the pitfalls and triumphs she faced as a young adult while looking for a glimpse of the good life she might live. Jennifer Gasner is honest, funny, and delightfully dramatic as she takes us back to the 1990s, her days of college partying, awkward sexual tension, and angsty music.”