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Review: Viral Nation by Shaunta Grimes
The description for this book uses the phrase “brilliant but autistic” to describe its main character, and that’s where our conflicted feelings about Viral Nation start.
The description for this book uses the phrase “brilliant but autistic” to describe its main character, and that’s where our conflicted feelings about Viral Nation start.
This book definitely had its creepy moments, but I think other books have taken the protective older brother trope and did it better—without turning the younger brother into a plot device.
The writing and characters are wonderful, but if you’re looking for a book about depression, I’d pass on this one.
While Call’s disability informs his character, it’s hardly the focus of the story, and I appreciated that. What I liked even more was the way Black and Clare treated Call’s disability when they did mention it.
The best part about this story being told as a graphic novel how Gulledge shows us Will’s anxiety: we can literally see the shadows and worries that plague Will.
I wish this book, featuring a girl newly diagnosed with Crohn’s, had existed when I was a teenager—my recurring thought throughout was, “Oh my god, someone wrote a book for me!”
I was intrigued by the virtual-reality premise, but this book is a veritable hotbed of misogyny and a case study in how not to write a wheelchair-using character.
All the way through the book, I felt that something was slightly off with the portrayal of Tessie’s selective mutism, but in a way that made it hard to pin down.
This series is a fascinating look at how a writer can acknowledge the “magical cure” trope and improve on the portrayal in later books.
Pete’s autism is portrayed over and over again as being non-stop pain and suffering. That got incredibly hard to read; do people really think this is what autism is like?