Like in real life, autism spectrum disorder alone is never the whole story, and Baskin does a good job balancing Jason’s autism with his writing life, family, school, and budding friendship. She’s succeeded in creating an authentic autistic character who is anything but stereotypical.
Here is a key insight to creating realistic autistic characters: We do not do the visibly autistic things we do because of “autism,” full stop. Like non-autistic people, we are responding to our experiences of the world. Those experiences simply differ from those of non-autistic people.
Writing disability respectfully can be difficult, especially in the midst of large, seemingly contradictory conversations about representation. How should frustrated or concerned authors approach this?
Everything, Everything starts out as a respectful, sensitive narrative with incredibly likable characters, but ends on a shockingly disappointing note in terms of disability representation.
What is it like to grow up with dyscalculia? And how might a character experience it?
Eric Lindstrom wrote an excellent portrayal of a blind teenage girl, so we’re happy to invite him to the site to discuss his approach, blindness tropes, and more.
A snarky New York Times column referred to CFS as “yuppie flu,” and oh, it was hilarious. Those silly rich people imagining themselves sick!
Hunt captures the inner confusion when you aren’t getting something everyone else grasps easily that is a pre-diagnosed dyslexic’s life. Ally’s situation conjured up so many memories at first that it was hard for me to read, but the reward was great.
Today we get most forms of entertainment at the push of a button, so we tend to hate having to wait. The situation is even worse if you can’t read print—resulting in an endless waiting game for blind readers.
I appreciated the honesty and authenticity with which the emotional aspects of serious illness were written; the actual details of day-to-day life with cystic fibrosis, however, were a mixed bag.