Review: The Angel Tree by Daphne Benedis-Grab
Although the author got some of the details about blindness wrong, she seems very committed to diversity, and I enjoyed this book a lot.
Although the author got some of the details about blindness wrong, she seems very committed to diversity, and I enjoyed this book a lot.
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.
Shaunta Grimes’s Viral Nation is the rare YA dystopian novel with an autistic protagonist; we were keen to sit down with the author to discuss the book, its sequel Rebel Nation, and its protagonist Clover Donovan.
April Henry’s main character in Girl, Stolen is a well-researched, well-written example of blindness, and we were thrilled to discuss the book with her.
The notion of people faking disabilities is not at all new or novel–and, like many, many disability tropes, it’s a harmful 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.
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?
The Mara Dyer trilogy remains one of the best fictional depictions of PTSD that I have come across. That just makes it more disappointing when the series badly misses the mark on other issues.
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 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.