Reviewing Rebecca Alexander’s “Not Fade Away” 📖

Accessibility Description: This image shows a photograph of my book copy of “Not Fade Away” by Rebecca Alexander, with Sascha Alper, laying on top of the table. The cover of the book is in white, and it shows a blur image of Rebecca Alexander walking from behind, and she wears a dress. In front of the book reads the title: “Not Fade Away: A Memoir of Senses Lost and Found”. This was photographed with my iPhone10.

This topic will be slightly different, for what’s coming up on today’s new post in The Autistic Animator’s Desk, only because we don’t have a drawing, painting, illustration, nor animation test to take a look at. As you have just noticed the title, I’ll be sharing another review, but instead of reviewing a movie, along with a fan art drawn in my animation style, I’ll be reviewing a book.

Surprisingly, it happens to be my very first book-review topic! And I’m actually very excited to share it with you, because not only I’m going to review one book, but we’re going to explore on one of the amazing women who inspires many people to overcome the struggles and challenges in daily life. However, I think it’s an very important and inspiring subject to talk about, for anyone out there who are living with disabilities, and trying to learn on what can we experience on a daily basis of living with a disability, such as facing the life challenges that can be too hard to deal with, and then, learning how to push it forward and beat the obstacle of everyday struggles and hard times, till we finally achieve our goals and successes in life.

So, the book I’m going to be reviewing is a memoir called Not Fade Away: A Memoir of Senses Lost and Found by Rebecca Alexander, along with Sascha Alper.

Who is Rebcca Alexander? What is Her Book, Not Fade Away?

Rebecca Alexander is a psychotherapist, author, athlete, and disability rights activist, who holds two master’s degrees from Columbia University. She is Deafblind, born with a genetic condition called Usher syndrome.

Usher syndrome is the leading cause of deaf blindness in the United States and around the world, leaving a person with both vision and hearing loss. There are three types of Usher syndrome: the Type I leaves children born completely deaf, and they begin to lose their vision around ten years later during childhood. The Type II is less severe, leaving children born with hearing loss and having a normal balance, but as they begin reaching into their teens, they would lose some vision. And Type III is least severe, and anyone living with this type of Usher syndrome would go blind and deaf in their adulthood.

Rebecca Alexander has Usher syndrome type III since childhood, beginning with vision loss, when she was twelve, and then developing hearing loss to her early adulthood. After she was diagnosed with Usher syndrome type III, Miss Alexander was told that she would go fully blind and deaf by the age of thirty.

According to her experience with having Usher syndrome type III, she can only see about ten degrees of vision, which she describes it as a ‘donut vision’. For her hearing loss, she had tinnitus, and had to wear hearing aids. Today, she wears the cochlear implants in both sides of her ears. A cochlear implant is a piece of a device that’s done by surgery to place a magnetic piece onto the skull, and the implant is attached on top of the head, and it would lead deaf people to experience sound, more approval than hearing aids. Miss Alexander can sign in both American Sign Language (ASL) and Tactile Sign Language (TSL). Tactile Sign Language is a type of sign language for people who are deafblind, using movement for both hands and arms to communicate.

In her book, Not Fade Away, Rebecca Alexander tells her life story: exploring the traits of her childhood, her family, the experiences of vision loss and hearing loss, the diagnosis of Usher syndrome, the accident from fallen off from a window at the age of eighteen, her struggles in living with her vision and hearing loss, fighting for her independence, and overcoming the challenges to accept her disabilities and her acceptance of needing help.

My first discovery of Miss Rebecca Alexander was by watching the documentary on Helen Keller, called Becoming Helen Keller by American Masters, when it first premiered on PBS on October 19th, 2021. She was the narrator and was featured as one of the interviewees to speak about Keller, and she did a terrific job on narrating the documentary. I really think it was super cool for Miss Alexander to be part on telling the story of Helen Keller, as someone who can identify with Keller, since she is deaf and blind, and disability rights advocate herself. Of course, I did mention a little bit on Rebecca Alexander in my very first topic about Helen Keller, titled: A Topic About Helen Keller, in which I posted from last year in November, so if you have not yet read it, nor having to see my drawings of Helen Keller, I left a link down below, so you can click on it and check it out. It’s a really amazing documentary, and I highly recommended it. You can watch Becoming Helen Keller from American Masters on PBS. Be sure to check on your local PBS stations. It’s also available on DVD.

Before Rebecca Alexander, the only two famous people with disabilities I’ve idolized are Helen Keller and Temple Grandin. After seeing the documentary, till I finally got my own DVD copy of the film for Christmas, and then taking the sign language winter classes on Zoom, in few months later, I became curious in learning more about her. And so, I go and watch some few clips of her on YouTube, just watching and listening to her story, and discovering her book, Not Fade Away. Later on, I became fascinated and inspired by the life story of Miss Alexander, even after reading her book for the first time, she became one of my favorite people with disabilities, as well as naming her as one of my heroes.

As I became very interested in trying to read Miss Alexander’s book, Not Fade Away, I ordered a printed copy on Amazon, and got it by mail on Saturday, August 6th. On the very same day, in the early evening, I started reading the first four or five chapters. I’ve read the book almost throughout the entire month of August, and finished it on Sunday, August 28th, in twenty-two days.

I have to say that Rebecca Alexander has written a very incredible book! Her story is amazing, awesome, and inspiring! It’s about discovering on what she has gone through and achieving her goals, during the good times and bad times, and how her disabilities didn’t stop her for just by being herself.

What surprised me, during my time reading this book, was that I begin to realize that she and I have some similarities, like there were some things we have in common. But it’s not just me, I don’t think. I think many people with disabilities, whether you are autistic, blind, deaf, deafblind, dyslexic, have ADHD, etc. may have things in common with her, too. The one main subject I can think of is having help. For example, when you think of the term ‘disability’, it means people with disabilities are known for needing assistance, and a person next to a disabled person has to act as the guide, teacher, and/or interpreter. Sometimes, in any disabled person’s perspective, they might feel that having help can too much that they wanted to try and do things on their own without help.

In the autism community, many kids and adults who are on the autism spectrum are very known for needing more help, because their brains are wired differently. They tend to think differently than those who don’t have the condition, causing them to have trouble with communication and understanding the world, and that happens in both at homes and schools. They have to be taught with education, learning how to read and write and counting numbers, knowing the differences between right and wrong, and more importantly, how to take care of themselves and become independently.

I can tell you this that I have been living with assistance all my life, from both my home life and school life. I was very lucky to get much help as I needed in school, and it helped me beating the odds and moving forward. In high school, I had to learn how to become an independent student, and that was nervous wrecking for me, but I was able to achieve the classes, and graduated at eighteen years old. In my time in college, I was living with a nice, happy independent life, but making sure that I would get bit of much help as I would need and passing the classes as I can and completing a degree. I was able to get my associate degree in art, and I couldn’t be prouder of it.

Sometimes there are moments that I’ll struggle on accepting help, even at almost twenty-eight years old. I am still living with a parent, I live with my mom, but there are many things that I can do things on my own: Being home by myself, taking care of my cat Charlotte, cooking food in the oven, buying lunch or dinner at a restaurant, counting how much money I have, going to the ATM, and setting up the security system at night before going to bed. However, there are still other things that I’ll struggle and needing some help with, such as cooking on the stove, balancing my checkbook, and getting my groceries.

Just because I am autistic, doesn’t mean that I will never be independent. There are some things that I’ll probably won’t be able to do independently, but it can’t stop me being independent. Like traveling. I knew that I will never travel independently, due to having bit of anxiety as part of my autism, there’s NO away I’ll travel on an airplane on my own. If I want to travel to somewhere, either by car or flying, I need someone to accompany with me, like my parents or family members. I don’t drive. Cars can be pretty scary, even up on highways. I’m not gonna say never, I just don’t think I’ll able to drive. All I can say is that never say never to my independence. It just takes time. There are many people with autism who can live independently and do things on their own. It just takes time, and the more they learn, the more they’ll learn to understand.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with having the need of help, and it’s not like they’re treating you like a baby or a little kid, which I totally get it. The rule is that you cannot be rude or pushy on someone helping you, you just have to be polite about it and let someone help you. I think that’s the life lesson taught by Rebecca Alexander, and the message behind her memoir is learning the powerful perspective of a real-life disabled person. What her book has taught me is that it’s definitely okay to ask someone for help, that help is a good thing and it’s nothing to be ashamed of, no matter how much you want the taste for independence, whether you have a disability or not. But most importantly, don’t look at your disability as your weakness, think of it as your ultimate superpower.

So, that is my review on Rebecca Alexander’s book, Not Fade Away, and I hope you all enjoyed reading on this very first book-reviewing post on today’s topic. Her book will be adapting into a movie by Netflix. Have you read Not Fade Away? If so, what are your thoughts on it? And what kind of lessons do you think we can learn from Rebecca Alexander? Please share your thoughts in the comment box below.

If you want to read Not Fade Away, you can order it on Amazon, and if you want to learn more about Miss Alexander, check out her website in the link down below. I also recommended you watching a full interview of her by the American Foundation for the Blind, called The Power of Gratitude and Joy with Rebecca Alexander on YouTube, so please check it out.

Till next time, take care! Don’t ever give up! 😊

Link: