LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2026 'Inspiring and life-affirming' VIV GROSKOP 'Astonishing, important, and truly radical ... this book is completely transformative' POLLY MORLAND 'Surrendering to what happens to us, to find joy and meaning in spite of it, is the bravest and most wise choice we can make. This book is extraordinary' MIRANDA HART It wasn't a car crash, but there was a collision. He fell from the third floor. At the age of twenty-two, Grace Spence Green's spine was broken at the fourth thoracic vertebra, and her life changed tracks. One day, she was in hospital supporting patients, the next she was one. To Exist As I Am traces Grace's journey back to the wards and back to herself - as words like recovery, independence and community, well and unwell, took on new meanings. Through her extraordinary story, she asks how we might fight for change, while joyously embracing life exactly as we are.

Essential reading. Grace combines humour, warmth and grit to tell a story that would make anyone reflect on their own sense of self and the nature of injury and healing -- Xand van Tulleken
A beautiful, powerful, immersive read -- Rachel Clarke
A wonderfully intricate, heartfelt account of the blurred line between patient and doctor. Inspiring and life-affirming -- Viv Groskop
Lucid, hopeful and fierce, this book is completely transformative -- Polly Morland
Grace said she made the decision not to hold out for a cure or "for my legs to wake up ... life was for living now". Surrendering to what happens to us, to find joy and meaning in spite of it, is the bravest and most wise choice we can make and this book is an extraordinary one to inspire just that -- Miranda Hart
A book of wisdom and love, trauma and acceptance, extraordinary resilience and justified anger, it'll change the way you think about disability. Stop whatever it is that you're reading and read Grace Spence Green instead -- Gavin Francis
Unputdownable, awe-inspiring, necessary. The best book I've read by a doctor in a very long time -- Gabriel Weston
Having also been through spinal cord injury, this is the best personal account of that trauma. I kept wanting to underline sentences because they are so true and so beautiful -- Tom Shakespeare
To Exist As I Am upends the familiar tropes of the rehab memoir, and gives us something perceptive and new ... Valuable, insightful and beautifully written -- James and Lucy Catchpole
Exquisitely written and compelling, this book tells the story of a remarkable doctor. By the end it will have upended the preconceptions many of us hold as to what it is to lead a rich, fulfilled life -- Caroline Elton

Grace Spence Green is a junior doctor working to challenge the narratives surrounding disability, medicine and identity. In 2018, aged 22 and a 4th year medical student, she sustained a spinal cord injury and is now a full-time wheelchair user. Since her life-changing injury, Grace has become a passionate advocate for the disabled community, appearing in the BMJ and Guardian, and across TV and radio.