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seawarrior's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
hopeful
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
I'm not quite sure how to feel about this book. It was a relief to read Grace speak candidly about difficulties navigating the world as an autistic person, as her voice put words to things I've felt my whole life but struggled to explain well. Yet I didn't really like who Grace was as a character. She's almost entirely self-absorbed and avoidant and when tragedy strikes in the last few pages of the book, she spends her time fixating on how poorly she feels but still leaves the situations altogether, a decision which is supported within the narrative.
I felt like I was waiting the whole book for Grace to learn to think of others more and accept responsibility for herself and her actions, but that moment never came. Instead, every character in the book enabled her to keep running away from situations she'd caused and expect the problem to resolve itself without her. I'm more than familiar with how it feels to start losing motor skills and speech ability and have your mind go all foggy and angry when overloaded with sensations and emotions, but these struggles don't spare us from learning to communicate more openly with people and apologize when we've lashed out at them so we can move forward and set new boundaries in place so those incidents don't repeat themselves.
I don't feel it's healthy for autistic youth to read this, relate to it, and feel like they're helpless to their sensory and speech difficulties as Grace does. She never learns how to advocate for her needs effectively, or how to untangle her emotions so she could explain them to her loved ones and grow alongside them. I was disappointed that the book ended without those important matters anywhere near resolved. I also don't like that allistic people may read this and get the idea that most autistic people are self-absorbed individuals who verbally and physically lash out at their family members and then write it off as an uncontrollable meltdown, as Grace does. She never finds the strength to apologize for what she's done in that instance and many others, and it's never brought up again. Altogether, this book felt like it left many threads hanging and I'm both frustrated by the direction it went, and that I couldn't make myself enjoy it more. There's very few books with autistic protagonists written by autistic people, so I hate that this story isn't one I feel uplifted by.
I felt like I was waiting the whole book for Grace to learn to think of others more and accept responsibility for herself and her actions, but that moment never came. Instead, every character in the book enabled her to keep running away from situations she'd caused and expect the problem to resolve itself without her. I'm more than familiar with how it feels to start losing motor skills and speech ability and have your mind go all foggy and angry when overloaded with sensations and emotions, but these struggles don't spare us from learning to communicate more openly with people and apologize when we've lashed out at them so we can move forward and set new boundaries in place so those incidents don't repeat themselves.
I don't feel it's healthy for autistic youth to read this, relate to it, and feel like they're helpless to their sensory and speech difficulties as Grace does. She never learns how to advocate for her needs effectively, or how to untangle her emotions so she could explain them to her loved ones and grow alongside them. I was disappointed that the book ended without those important matters anywhere near resolved. I also don't like that allistic people may read this and get the idea that most autistic people are self-absorbed individuals who verbally and physically lash out at their family members and then write it off as an uncontrollable meltdown, as Grace does. She never finds the strength to apologize for what she's done in that instance and many others, and it's never brought up again. Altogether, this book felt like it left many threads hanging and I'm both frustrated by the direction it went, and that I couldn't make myself enjoy it more. There's very few books with autistic protagonists written by autistic people, so I hate that this story isn't one I feel uplifted by.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Ableism, Alcohol, Animal cruelty, Bullying, Injury/Injury detail, and Vomit
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