When I Grow Up, I Want to Be a Chair: A Memoir

Harbuck debuts with a tough yet tender memoir about the spinal cord injury she sustained in a 1997 car accident that left her paralyzed from the chest down. Opening with a harrowing account of the accident, which took place the night of her high school winter formal and killed two people, Harbuck spends the rest of the narrative describing the ways she’s learned to live with its repercussions. She outlines how, despite her limited mobility, she’s managed to travel, teach, marry, and become a mother—which doctors didn’t think she’d be able to do. A lifelong swimmer, she became a swim coach and, eventually, a Paralympic athlete. “Having the will to accept the circumstances and moments that guide you... holds a secret that can propel you further than ever imagined,” Harbuck writes in one characteristically life-affirming passage. “It can move you in the direction of a life that you wouldn’t have ever dreamed possible.” In lucid prose, she nudges readers to tackle whatever challenges they face head-on by illustrating how far fearlessness has carried her. Readers will be inspired. (Self-published)