The “autism voice”—characterized by narrative devices and a detached character voice—tends to portray autistic characters as unworldly, hyper-rational blank slates defined purely by a series of unusual behaviors.
“How did you manage to capture that voice?” beta readers would ask. “How did you know to describe those particular feelings?” I was starting to have a few self-revelations about that.
I’ve always wondered what it would’ve looked like to the outside world, this dance of ours. (Would we be pitied?)
The notion of people faking disabilities is not at all new or novel–and, like many, many disability tropes, it’s a harmful one.
Charlie Cooper is your average, down-to-earth girl—who happens to be disabled. But occasionally, this normalcy backfires.
Despite good ideas and wonderful writing, Brilliant falls flat when it comes to having any constructive meaning regarding depression.
Your Voice is All I Hear will familiarize readers with common symptoms, while normalizing schizophrenia as an illness like any other; however, it is obvious that this book’s target audience is not those with schizophrenia themselves.
I don’t remember the first time I was bullied, but I do remember the moment I finally realized that I had been bullied.
Ever seen the Allstate commercial? “I’m a random windstorm. Shaky, shaky.” Well, sometimes that’s how life feels when you’re a kid with disabilities. Because I’m both very random and my life can be, well, pretty shaky.
Hanna is a character with bipolar disorder; she’s not “bipolar disorder, the walking human diagnosis.” I think people who share the disease will find something soothing in seeing someone who both manages and mismanages her illness realistically.