rickjones's Reviews (1.66k)

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 really enjoyed this book. Reading it was much more rewarding than I had expected it to be. There's definitely some tense and dramatic moments, but they're cushioned with descriptions of genuine love and apology afterward. 

Primarily, this is a story about Mary Jane discovering what it means to grow into an individual and an adult. The most dramatic shift in her thinking is realizing that the perspectives and customs of her white, upper class, conservative mother aren't objectively 'right', and that she doesn't want to abide by most of them. Though she's surrounded by adults who are almost always too rigid or too fluid in their thoughts and behavior, she sticks to her values as she's learning them, and often serves as the most reasonable person in both her households.

This isn't a story about a girl who spirals into drugs and sex too young and is exploited by people providing them to her. Mary Jane's acts of rebellion are much more tame, and are mostly risky only because of her extremely conservative parents. The Cones, and Sheba and Jimmy, aren't perfect mentors or wholly responsible adults, but they embrace Mary Jane with respect and affection she hadn't even realized was normal in other people's homes. My favorite part of this book was reading of how the Cone household danced together, repeatedly and openly showed affection for each other, and spoke honestly about the troubles they were having. It was also a joy to read about Izzy and her exuberance towards everything. It's easy to understand how Mary Jane never wants to be apart from her new family, as messy as they sometimes are. I will definitely miss these characters myself.