![\"Cover](\"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-content\/uploads\/on-the-edge-of-gone-300x455.jpg\")
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\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>Denise, a teenage autistic girl in the Netherlands, can\u2019t get to her temporary shelter in time due to her mother\u2019s waffling. A chance encounter leads the two of them to find shelter, instead, on a generation ship that hasn\u2019t left yet. The ship\u2019s crew warn them that they will have to leave again after the impact is over \u2060\u2014 but Denise sees the generation ship as her best hope of survival, and is determined to find a permanent place on board.<\/p>\nThe book touches on some very common apocalypse and post-apocalypse tropes, which many of us have seen in stories before. Everything is terrible; resources and safe space are extremely limited; therefore, to be allowed in the safe space, one must \u201cpull one\u2019s weight\u201d and be judged worthy. The consequences of this system for disabled people are usually not spelled out, but the implications are ominous. One might be forgiven, given the premise, for anticipating a story all about an autistic person struggling to prove her worth to murderously ableist masters who think that no autistic people should be allowed to survive.<\/p>\n
Fortunately \u2014 while Denise does, realistically, struggle to prove herself \u2014 Duyvis\u2019s book is actually much more complex than this.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not really a question of anyone being overtly prejudiced against autism. A few people, realistically, are, but by and large the people on the generation ship are good people trying to protect each other in a bad situation. There are other disabled people on the ship, including a wheelchair user (though this is only briefly mentioned) and an older autistic woman who serves as the ship\u2019s doctor. It\u2019s just that space really is limited, and there is already an enormous waiting list largely composed of the families of people who are already aboard. Many people on the ship see that Denise is helpful and resourceful, but anyone with a family on the waiting list understandably is looking for the survival of their family first. It\u2019s not a question of ableism, or at least not solely of ableism, but of a complex and very difficult situation without easy answers.<\/p>\n
If the story can be said to have a villain, it is not the other people on the ship, but Denise\u2019s mother, who is awful<\/em>. She is a drug addict who is neglectful to her children. Her irrational stalling is what prevents Denise from getting to the temporary shelter in the first place. She plays up the \u201cmy daughter has autism, isn\u2019t it cute\/sad\u201d card to other adults, in front of Denise, who is humiliated; she tells other adults not to take Denise\u2019s word for what Denise needs; she violates Denise\u2019s physical boundaries. She explains her drug abuse condescendingly as if it\u2019s something Denise would understand if only she had more social skills. Even when she apologizes, it\u2019s defensive and immediately followed up with phrases like \u201cdon\u2019t treat me like a villain\u201d. Addiction \u2014 as many characters point out \u2014 is an illness, but Denise\u2019s mother is toxic even when sober, and more than once it\u2019s her actions while sober that put her own and her children\u2019s lives in danger.<\/p>\n (I should note that the Evil Addict with no redeeming qualities can be a trope, and a potentially ableist one, but I don\u2019t feel qualified to speak on how it\u2019s handled here. I found Denise\u2019s mother, apart from her addiction, a painfully apt portrayal of the kind of self-centred parental experience that many autistic people report.)<\/p>\n Denise is aware that much of what her mother does is not okay, but to her credit, she still does not believe that her mother deserves to die. What she wants is the same as what all the neurotypical characters want \u2014 survival for her whole family.<\/p>\n As Denise tries hard to earn a place for herself and her mother \u2014 and to find her missing sister, who may or may not be alive \u2014 she gets to explore many facets of a complex and difficult world, not only aboard the generation ship, but in shelters and other pockets of survival. She has a great deal of agency, perhaps more than many of the neurotypical characters. She is allowed several crowning moments of success \u2014 as well as making several big, costly mistakes.<\/p>\n