{"id":149,"date":"2013-07-07T09:00:34","date_gmt":"2013-07-07T14:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.wordpress.com\/?p=149"},"modified":"2021-08-22T14:55:25","modified_gmt":"2021-08-22T14:55:25","slug":"corinne-duyvis-reviews-you-look-different-in-real-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/2013\/07\/07\/corinne-duyvis-reviews-you-look-different-in-real-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: You Look Different in Real Life<\/i> by Jennifer Castle"},"content":{"rendered":"

For someone who always talks about wanting to read\/see more autistic characters, I\u2019ve actually read embarrassingly few books fitting that criterion. I\u2019m continually hampered by the size of my TBR pile, deadlines, and an assortment of other issues, and usually only come across autistic characters by accident.<\/p>\n

So when author Jennifer Castle offered to send me a copy of her latest novel \u2014\u00a0You Look Different in Real Life<\/a><\/em>, a contemporary YA \u2014 to review on Disability in Kidlit, I jumped at the chance.<\/p>\n

\"Cover<\/a>\t\n\t
\n\t\t\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\tBUY ON BOOKSHOP<\/span>\n\t\t\t\tBOOKSHOP<\/span>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t& support independent bookstores\n\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/article> \n\n\t<\/center><\/div>Going in, I was both curious and apprehensive; all I knew was that the book featured an autistic character. I\u2019m relieved to say I\u2019m pleasantly surprised with how the character was portrayed, although I’m not without reservations.<\/p>\n

The book is about five teenagers who starred in documentaries at ages five and eleven, and now, at age sixteen, the next installment awaits \u2014 but a lot of issues have cropped up between the five of them over the years. They\u2019ve changed since age eleven, and not always in ways they\u2019re happy with. The cameras and film-makers forcing them together brings all these issues to the surface.<\/p>\n

This review focuses on Rory, one of the teenagers in the documentary, who was diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder at some point between ages eleven and sixteen. Though best friends since childhood with our narrator, Justine, they broke up due to Justine\u2019s frustrations with Rory\u2019s behavior. Justine shares various memories of Rory being unable to sleep over at Justine\u2019s house, of Rory completely \u2014 and awkwardly \u2014 misreading situations, and Rory being bossy and always demanding that things go her way.<\/p>\n

Since Justine is our point of view character, one can expect the portrayal of their relationship to be slanted to make Justine’s actions look sympathetic and understandable, but the narrative is surprisingly balanced; Justine knows she was wrong in unceremoniously dumping Rory, and there’s clear longing and regret woven into their current-day interactions.<\/p>\n

In other words, Rory has an actual role in the story. She\u2019s sympathetic, she\u2019s funny, and her role is much more “Justine\u2019s ex-best friend” than “the weird autistic one.” She has interests \u2014 obsessive ones, naturally, largely online-based \u2014 and gets to have complex feelings about both the situation they find themselves in and about Justine\u2019s behavior old and new.<\/p>\n

All of this delighted me: it\u2019s such<\/em> a change from the autistic characters I normally encounter in fiction, who are often reduced to props, and who rarely get to display emotions or opinions.<\/p>\n

I was also quite pleased with the depiction of Rory\u2019s autistic traits. I completely recognized myself in the way Rory will only briefly make eye contact, then look away \u2014 then making another brief moment of eye contact, then looking away again. I do that exact same thing. The way she forced out social niceties was familiar, as well. While I\u2019ve become pretty good at making those things second nature over the years, they weren\u2019t before. (As a teenager, I taught myself to say \u201cgood night\u201d to people when parting ways in the evening, then accidentally blurted it out during mornings and afternoons as well.)<\/p>\n

Her obsessive interests, her bossiness, the way she separates her food on her plate or aligns objects, her skill at navigating: it\u2019s clear the author did her research instead of falling back on tired assumptions. Both Rory\u2019s autism and the way she\u2019s adapting and learning rang absolutely true to me.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a lot to like, basically, but I did have some reservations. The biggest of these is that so much of Rory\u2019s character and role in the plot are intrinsically tied into her autism. Examples:<\/p>\n

    \n
  • Her role is to be the ex-best friend \u2014 <\/i>which is great \u2014 <\/i>but the reason for the “ex” part is Rory’s autism.<\/li>\n
  • She\u2019s the quiet, odd, awkward one in the group; these traits are linked directly to her autism.<\/li>\n
  • Ditto for her hobbies \u2014<\/i> Rory she says they help her understand people.<\/li>\n
  • Every flashback sequence with Rory directly focuses on her autism.<\/li>\n
  • Almost every time we see Rory on page, particularly in the first half of the book, her autism is emphasized in some way or another. Instead of simply saying something, it\u2019s mentioned how she says it “flatly” or has to think about it for a while. Instead of simply walking, her gait is described. The way she\u2019s singled out as being unusual happens practically every time the character performs any action, to the point where I did a double-take the first time she’s mentioned as doing dishes without the narrative lingering on it.<\/li>\n
  • Rory’s development is all about how she manages to push beyond her boundaries. While I really liked these scenes, they again center around her autism.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    Autism is absolutely a big part of most autistic people\u2019s lives; I have no problem with it being woven into many different aspects of a character. Autism isn\u2019t simply a quirky\/tragic accessory that can be separated from someone\u2019s “actual self.” That said, I did find it problematic that Rory seemingly did not have any history, interests, traits, or behaviors that could just be Rory<\/em> instead of Autistic Rory\u2122.<\/p>\n

    The character ends up very much defined by her autism, which is a shame; it wouldn’t have taken more than a few tweaks to round her out and make the autism simply a part of her character rather than dominating it.<\/p>\n

    Other parts that made me hesitant were the way she\u2019s portrayed as “endearing” and the other characters hover over her in such a motherly way. This sometimes gives Rory a little-sister vibe rather than a classmate vibe.<\/p>\n

    However, that was still handled better than I would\u2019ve expected. For one, it\u2019s textually acknowledged: in a scene when they\u2019re keeping an eye on her from a distance, one character asks, \u201cDoes she know she\u2019s got the Secret Service here?\u201d<\/p>\n

    For another, when Rory is struggling with sensory overload, a character simply asks her, \u201cHow can I help?\u201d and asking this question is unequivocally portrayed as being the absolute best thing to do<\/em>. When they brainstorm solutions that might help Rory through a difficult situation, she\u2019s fully involved in this discussion. She has the final say in what happens, and people respect her agency instead of shoving her around.<\/p>\n

    In a world where autistic people are often seen as a Problem That Must Be Dealt With, that\u2019s something I appreciated a lot.<\/p>\n

    A final point of criticism is that in this five-member group of teenagers, with disabled, queer, and non-white characters, it\u2019s quite a shame that our narrator is the straight, white, abled girl of the group. I really enjoyed the book, and I dug Justine’s predicament \u2014 she was the break-out star of the first two documentaries and feels like she hasn\u2019t lived up to that potential \u2014 but I found the other characters more interesting, and I can imagine flat-out loving the book if it had been from one of their perspectives. (Understandably, I’m particularly biased toward Rory being our protagonist.)<\/p>\n

    As is, though, I appreciated a lot about You Look Different in Real Life<\/em>; it\u2019s one of those novels that makes me want to read a lot more contemporary YA. While Rory\u2019s portrayal isn\u2019t flawless, it\u2019s well researched, and a significant step in the right direction of treating autistic characters as regular teenagers and integral parts of the cast.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    While Rory\u2019s portrayal isn\u2019t flawless, it\u2019s well researched, and a significant step in the right direction of treating autistic characters as regular teenagers and integral parts of the cast.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":156,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_generate-full-width-content":"","kt_blocks_editor_width":""},"categories":[62,522],"tags":[58,73],"genre":[5],"age_category":[8],"disability":[7],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=149"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7353,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149\/revisions\/7353"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149"},{"taxonomy":"genre","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/genre?post=149"},{"taxonomy":"age_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/age_category?post=149"},{"taxonomy":"disability","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/disability?post=149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}