
Review: The Rest of Us Just Live Here by Patrick Ness
Despite reservations about the ending, I would recommend The Rest of Us Just Live Here; it’s a welcome addition to YA novels involving OCD and anxiety.
Despite reservations about the ending, I would recommend The Rest of Us Just Live Here; it’s a welcome addition to YA novels involving OCD and anxiety.
I could criticize the focus on “fixing” and of the correlation between unwantedness and disability, but the book is focused on unwantedness in a broader fashion; Ava is as challenged by her circumstances as she is by her clubfoot.
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.
This book portrays its autistic protagonist in ways that will give readers negative, incorrect, and in some cases abusive ideas about autistic people.
While Rory’s portrayal isn’t flawless, it’s well researched, and a significant step in the right direction of treating autistic characters as regular teenagers and integral parts of the cast.
While we’re never told exactly what Marcelo’s impairment is, and it’s implied that no one can quite figure it out, it shares many features that will be familiar to those of us on the autism spectrum.
Jacobus nailed the struggle with addiction, she nailed physical limitations, she nailed alcoholic and disability-related depression, she nailed the chaos of the active alcoholic, and she nailed the hopelessness and despair that can come from all of it.
Many characters who may be mentally ill reject treatment out of hand, considering therapy a waste of time and suspecting medication will turn them into a zombie. Why are these narratives so popular? What are the alternatives?
In terms of disabled characters, what would our contributors like to see more of in children’s literature?
We recap the highlights of our #diklSFF Twitter chat, including a link to the full Storify.