So when I initially finished the book last night I felt a little disappointed, but the more I thought about the book the more I realized there was more going on under the hood.

Despite the name, Swamp Thing: Twin Branches isn’t about two brothers. Alec is absolutely the main character and the book is about him slowly learning how to communicate with his peers and his brother to create healthy relationships and just how challenging that is for someone on the autistic spectrum. Alec’s inner monologues on how plants communicate and interact with each other is what clued me in on this. Specifically Alec’s brief monologue about the difference between a symbiotic and parasitic relationship.

Alec’s nervousness and hyper fixation on plants keeps him stuck in the same place. That is, until love interest Abby Arcane enters the picture and develops a relationship with him, giving Alec a chance to cultivate a relationship with someone who shares a mutual interest and eventually branch out to people radically different from him. Namely his more outgoing and adventurous brother Walker, who’s been *incredibly* supportive of him throughout the story, but up until Alec’s growth, really only had a one-sided relationship with him. With Walker doing all the work to maintain it while Alec kept everyone at bay.

This book won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, and the ending felt very sudden (that’s been my major criticism of all of DC’s YA books), but if you dig a bit deeper I think there’s a lot of things to appreciate.