Upward Bound – Woody Brown

Published By: Jonathan Cape
Pages: 208
Released On: 02/04/2026

Among the clients and staff are Carlos, a charismatic aide who lost his mother as a boy, and Jorge, who is gentle, nonspeaking and prone to escape despite Carlos’s best efforts. Tom, a beautiful young man with cerebral palsy, pines for Ann, the lifeguard for the summer who feels out of her depth. Then there’s Dave, the centre’s director. He wanted to be an actor, but finds himself on a very different path.

At the heart of Upward Bound is Walter, a recent college student returning to the company of his peers after a family tragedy. Around him, a story unfolds of friendships forged, connections missed and the dreams – some new, others almost forgotten – that shape us. With his wit, empathy and astonishing gifts as a storyteller, Woody Brown immerses us in life as we have never experienced it before.

*****

Thanks to NetGalley and Jonathan Cape for the advanced copy of this title in return for an honest review.

I had heard such brilliant things about this book so I had high hopes – that were partially met.

I have a lot of experience with disabled individuals (my Mum spent 15+ years teaching in a special needs school) and I have also read a lot of novels starring disabled characters, and they don’t always hit the mark so I was quite apprehensive about that part.

It’s a relatively short book, and it’s probably wise as it does contain some intense topics.

It gives a voice, a perspective to characters we don’t always see as heroes in stories. Sadly, in reality people can be ignorant of disability, assuming anyone in a wheelchair can’t do anything, can’t hear, can’t understand, can’t think for themselves. But this book shows that the majority of them can understand and do just as much as anyone else, just maybe with some adaptations.

I found it interesting, this comparison between being in this day centre and being in a prison or asylum; its two different perspectives from the inside and the outside.

It’s split into sections written in the POV of various service users and staff, so we get a wide range of characters with a wide range of disabilities. You don’t get that deep with any of them, like I can’t tell you any more about them than is on the surface of the story, but he has given us different things to invest in. These different POVs are essentially telling the same story from different perspectives, which is fine, but I’d maybe have preferred a bit more varation.

I believe Woody himself is autistic and non-speaking, and so he’s infused his debut novel with so much heart and understanding that it takes it to another level. It has been infused with something that makes this more than just a fictional story. And I wonder just how much is fiction and how much is influenced by his own experiences.

There’s no real plot to speak of, not that that’s automatically a problem. I don’t know what I was expecting from it…I thought the cover suggested a whimsical, fantasy story, which this is definitely not.

Maybe I didn’t get as much out of it as other readers because this is an environment I am used to and so nothing was overly new or surprising for me.

For me, it wasn’t a perfect book, but it did have it’s good parts. It is heartwarming, moving, interesting, and educational, with an interesting narrative device and I think it will really open a lot of people’s eyes. I think it’s a book that definitely should be read by the “neurotypical” and “able” population so that this hidden group of people can be better understood amongst their peers.