![\"Cover](\"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-content\/uploads\/isla-300x454.jpg\")
<\/a><\/center><\/div>By their very nature, secondary characters are, well, secondary. They appear when they plot calls for it and are in large part defined by their relationship with the protagonist. In Isla<\/em>, this is very much the case for Kurt. I was excited whenever he appeared because I looked forward to further exploring his character or his tight, lifelong friendship with Isla, but was disappointed nearly every time \u2014 despite knowing that that’s to be expected when reading specifically for a secondary character. Kurt\u2019s sections are brief, and while he regularly pops up in Isla\u2019s thoughts, she\u2019s more consumed with her budding relationship with Josh.<\/p>\nIn the past, another friend of Isla\u2019s didn\u2019t get along with Kurt and forced Isla to choose between them; a similar situation happened when Isla dumped a boyfriend for treating Kurt badly. While I love how much she clearly cared for him, backstory like that risks depicting Isla as saintly for sticking with Kurt despite his eccentricities. Similarly, her new boyfriend Josh accepting and getting along with Kurt paints him in an immediately positive light \u2014 Isla nearly swoons with relief.<\/p>\n
I was left with the nagging feeling that Kurt largely existed as a complicating factor in Isla\u2019s relationship(s) and\u00a0to make her and Josh more appealing in readers\u2019 eyes.<\/p>\n
Which brings me back to my opening point: this is a common trend in portrayals of autistic characters, but can also be the nature of the beast when it comes to secondary characters. As Isla<\/em> is a romance, it\u2019s logical for the relationship between Isla and Josh to take center stage \u2014 and it’s actually addressed in-text, with Isla ditching Kurt in favor of Josh being called out numerous times. Still, I wanted to mention it, so that those picking up the book for autistic representation know not to expect more (in-depth) Kurt than the book actually delivers.<\/p>\n With that giant disclaimer out of the way, let me state this: whoa.<\/p>\n Given the not-Kurt-focus of the book, I was surprised by how many pitfalls regarding autistic representation Perkins avoided in a wonderfully understated manner. Various assumptions and tropes were casually turned over with a single line here or there, to the point where the book may actually get more right than other books that focus<\/em> on autism.<\/p>\n There are so many details I\u2019d like to comment on \u2014 most of them positive, but not all \u2014 that it\u2019s easier to organize them by topic. Some minor spoilers ahead.<\/p>\n \u2026 I\u2019m embarrassed about Kurt. He\u2019s so rigid. And awkward. But the shame that follows these traitorous thoughts is instantaneous. \u2026 As if I\u2019m any less awkward.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n We\u2019re all annoyed with our friends sometimes, whether they\u2019re autistic or not. I\u2019m extra-sensitive to these kinds of thoughts because they\u2019re so common and accepted\u2014even expected\u2014but within the context of the book, they\u2019re realistic and were addressed well.<\/li>\n \u201cI\u2019m so far from sucking that you can\u2019t even handle it.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n When he\u2019s unsure if a joke of Josh\u2019s is serious, he asks Isla about it, and rather than lingering on his misinterpretation, he comes back with a totally awful, wonderful pun. In short, Kurt is completely believable as an actual friend <\/em>to Isla, and not just someone she takes under her wing or hangs out with because she feels obligated to.<\/li>\n \u201cListen. I don\u2019t want to tag along on your dates, and I don\u2019t want you to stop going out, but it\u2019d be nice to know if you still gave a shit about me.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/li>\n \u201cYou\u2019re the one person who\u2019s never supposed to talk to me like that. Like I don\u2019t understand. You\u2019ve wanted to screw him for three years. Why wouldn\u2019t you now that you\u2019re dating? I\u2019m not the idiot that you think I am.\u201d \u201cIs it possible that he broke up with you, and you didn\u2019t realize it? People are confusing. They say one thing and mean the other.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n \u2014 and gives actual insightful, reasonable advice. I love that this happens in the same scene, acknowledging that social interactions are <\/em>often difficult for autistic people, but that it doesn\u2019t mean we’re incapable of understanding. In fact, because of the conscious way we have to learn social interaction, some autistic people\u00a0have an extra solid grasp of people\u2019s motivations and actions.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n Kurt launches into something about a freshman in his computer programming class, a girl who is tall and serene and already fluent in several internet languages \u2014 totally his type.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n I almost squeed at that line. Often, autistic characters are stripped of sexuality \u2014 not in a sense of being asexual (which would be wonderful if it were treated as an actual, legitimate identity, rather than a “side effect” of their autism) but in a sense of it not even being an option. Or, when the character does have sexual or romantic urges, it\u2019s turned into some kind of strange, surprising thing<\/em>.\u00a0Not the case here. It\u2019s treated completely casually.<\/li>\n \u201cWhat the DSM used to call Asperger\u2019s, and what they now call high-functioning autism. It\u2019s the same thing.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n This strikes me as both a plus and a minus. Many people still identify as having Asperger\u2019s, and I\u2019m not sure if saying \u201cit\u2019s the same thing\u201d might invalidate that identity. Personally, as someone originally diagnosed with Asperger\u2019s, I appreciated this line. I\u2019ve regularly seen people with Asperger\u2019s loudly distancing themselves from other autistic people, or people considering Asperger\u2019s as \u201cautism-lite\u201d or as \u201crelated to\u201d autism but not actually <\/em>autism. Many books reinforce that distinction, so I was really glad to see a book that didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n I did twitch at the mention of \u201chigh-functioning autism.\u201d The context is fairly neutral (for example, it’s not used to\u00a0compare to\/put down \u201clow-functioning\u201d people) but it\u2019s a highly contested and unpopular term within the disabled community.<\/li>\n \u201cBut it\u2019s not a problem, it\u2019s not like it\u2019s something that needs to be cured. His brain works a little differently from ours. That\u2019s all.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n It\u2019s surprisingly refreshing to see this so bluntly stated. This line may be many people\u2019s first exposure to this idea, and I love Isla<\/i> for introducing them to it.<\/li>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not like he\u2019s a card-counting savant or a mathematical genius or anything. I mean, don\u2019t get me wrong. He\u2019s brilliant. But those stereotypes are the worst.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Again: sometimes, that directness is necessary.<\/li>\n Kurt and I meet after his weekly therapy session, but Josh doesn\u2019t need to know that. I\u2019m glad that she respected his privacy enough to keep that part silent.<\/li>\n Aside from Kurt, there is other casual diversity scattered around the novel \u2014 Josh\u2019s ex-girlfriend, Isla\u2019s ex-friend, and Kurt\u2019s new friend are three siblings from an Indian family, and Isla\u2019s older sister is bisexual. (In the same line where this sister is mentioned as suddenly shaving her head and getting a girlfriend, she\u2019s mentioned as coming out as bi. It would have been so<\/em> easy to default to calling her a lesbian \u2014 most other authors would have! I loved this.)<\/p>\n In short: this isn’t the best book to pick up specifically for its autistic or otherwise diverse representation. The diversity is all secondary, with the focus very firmly on two straight, white, extremely privileged, largely abled (Josh has tendinitis) teenagers and their romance.<\/p>\n However, it is<\/em> a book that does so many surprising things right \u2014 ranging from a fresh, matter-of-fact depiction of autism to subtle yet efficient subversions of assumptions \u2014 that I\u2019m delighted every time I think of Kurt’s character. I definitely recommend picking up Isla<\/em> for anyone wanting to study that element.<\/p>\n Now, if only we could get a Kurt-and-tall-serene-girl-centric companion novel …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Although Kurt’s character seems to largely exist to serve the central romance, I was pleasantly surprised by how many pitfalls Perkins avoided in a wonderfully understated manner. Various assumptions and tropes were casually turned over with a single line here or there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1847,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_generate-full-width-content":"","kt_blocks_editor_width":""},"categories":[62,522],"tags":[140,182],"genre":[5,26],"age_category":[8],"disability":[7],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2224"}],"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=2224"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2224\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7314,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2224\/revisions\/7314"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2224"},{"taxonomy":"genre","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/genre?post=2224"},{"taxonomy":"age_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/age_category?post=2224"},{"taxonomy":"disability","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/disability?post=2224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Kurt and his relationships with Isla and others<\/h5>\n
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\nKurt stands up for himself \u2014 a surprisingly rare trait for an autistic character<\/h5>\n
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\nI\u2019m stung. \u201cI don\u2019t think that. You know I don\u2019t think that.\u201d
\n\u201cYou do.\u201d
\nThere\u2019s truth to what he\u2019s saying. It shames me.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/li>\n
\nKurt\u2019s sexuality<\/h5>\n
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Josh and Isla discuss Kurt’s autism<\/h5>\n
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\n<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\nVarious believable details<\/h5>\n
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