Ada Hoffmann is an autistic computer scientist from Canada who writes speculative fiction and poetry. She is the author of the Autistic Book Party review series which focuses on autistic characters and authors in speculative fiction for all ages.
Speculative fiction is work that focuses on difference, work that immerses us in it. But the choices we make when building a fictional world can reflect on the world that we live in now. So how do we worldbuild with disability in mind?
Our reviewers interview author and Disability in Kidlit editor Corinne Duyvis about disability tropes, survival in the apocalypse, and writerly research.
An emotionally wrenching book, but a worthy one, and one that treats its autistic protagonist with every bit of the realism and respect that she deserves.
The book deals in a thought-provoking way with many issues of human interaction; readers’ enjoyment will depend on their tolerance for abuse themes and for protagonists driven to terrible behavior without fully understanding how terrible it is.
What’s missing here is not any aspect of how the autistic character is depicted, per se—what’s missing is something subtler in the narrator’s depiction, and in her point of view.