Laughing at my Nightmare by Shane Burcaw

Laughing at my Nightmare a memoir of a life with SMA, a form of muscular dystrophy. Shane Burcaw wrote this book as a 21-year-old college student. Shane's personality is charming and he approaches the topic of his disease, his wheelchair, and everything that comes along with this with a very snarky tone. His book is conversational and while it is inspirational, he's not trying to inspire you. He's letting you in on the good, the bad, and the ugly of life with SMA. He's an undeniable optimist; he'll tell you now much parts of his disease "suck" but then he'll follow up by talking about what he's grateful for.

I first found Shane on the Youtube channel he shares with his girlfriend Hannah (Squirmy and Grubs) where they let viewers in on the ins and outs of their lives in Minnesota. Their goal is to normalize a relationship between someone with and disability and someone without one, and they are pretty adorable.

Here's my issue with this book, though: It's not appropriate for kids. I'm a high school teacher and I work with a student who has MS. He's a freshman and he's someone who I think would really enjoy making a connection with Shane. He loves to read inspirational stories and he doesn't let his disability limit him. He has the same kind of wheelchair as Shane. When I started reading it I was thinking about how great it would be to hand this book off to this student, but there are too many passages in it that are just too adult for that. There is too much profanity and too much discussion of sex. I get that Shane wrote this book as a college student and he says that people ask him questions about that stuff all the time but I really wish he'd written it in a different way. As a teacher I can't hand this off to a freshman. Maybe he'll write something more appropriate for students in the future. I know he's continuing his writing career, and I wish him all the best!