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Interview with Courtney Summers about This Is Not a Test
We invite Courtney Summers to the blog to discuss researching and writing mental illness, disability in her zombie novel, and the lack of diversity in apocalyptic narratives.
We invite Courtney Summers to the blog to discuss researching and writing mental illness, disability in her zombie novel, and the lack of diversity in apocalyptic narratives.
Although Kurt’s character seems to largely exist to serve the central romance, I was pleasantly surprised by how many pitfalls Perkins avoided in a wonderfully understated manner. Various assumptions and tropes were casually turned over with a single line here or there.
Tommy Smythe disappears one Friday night, and even after weeks of searching he can’t be found. This is the story of a rural community’s search for Tommy, and the complicated social networks created by wrongdoings and secrets in a small town.
Despite their proclamations to the contrary—“don’t tell me you’re one of those people who becomes their disease”—the characters are shown to have nothing in their lives that isn’t about their cancer.
Although the process of coping with and accepting sudden blindness seems rushed, this is one of the best books depicting blindness that I’ve read. Natalie’s emotions and time at a school for the blind are spot-on.
It’s a rare occurrence when an author can update an already published book, and even more rare when that update includes a huge overhaul of the portrayal of an autistic character. Alyssa Hillary takes a look at both the original and updated version in this review.
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.
Despite good ideas and wonderful writing, Brilliant falls flat when it comes to having any constructive meaning regarding depression.
I saw a lot of myself in Drea, and I imagine other autistic folks will be able to do the same. It was so nice to see accurate representation, because as an autistic person, I don’t see that very often.
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.