4 stars
I received a copy of this book through Goodreads in exchange for an honest review.I am kind of torn on how to rate this book. When I opened it, I instantly fell in love with Annika. I really enjoyed her narration and seeing how much she changed and grew into herself between 1991 and 2001. This is kind of a bulky book, but I feel like it went so quickly because I just loved the narration. This is one of those books that you just want to read, you don’t care where the plot takes you, you just want to be along for the ride. One of the things I did really like was that Annika is on the autism spectrum. I have read a few books that follow someone on the spectrum or are narrated by someone on the spectrum, but very few of them are females. I love that this book focuses on a female on the spectrum. While boys are come commonly diagnosed with autism, girls are diagnosed as well and are often overlooked in media representation. Currently, I work with two girls and two boys on the autism spectrum. It is really nice to see autism representation and female representation within that context. Overall, I think Annika was fairly represented. Autism spectrum disorders are incredible diverse so each person diagnosed is very different from the next, but many of the common characteristics are present in Annika. The only thing I didn’t like was the eye contact thing. Annika makes it clear that eye contact makes her uncomfortable and she can’t do it for long periods of time. Then by the end, she can suddenly stare deeply into someone’s eyes without looking away. Because love and all that. This is a common plot device in autism stories. If you just love someone enough, your weird autism things will go away. But if it really made her uncomfortable (some people on the spectrum describe it as physically painful), it would be totally fine to look away. It doesn’t mean you don’t love the person. Partway through there is some heavy sex stuff, which isn’t really my style and don’t think all the details were necessary, but it didn’t really hurt the book. You just can’t help rooting for Jonathan and Annika. They are adorable. And then all of a sudden, the book completely switches gears and felt like a completely different book. The last 50 pages or so I could see what was coming, but it still somehow threw me. Like how in the world did we wind up here? I understand the significance to the relationship and development of Annika’s character, but the quick shift just threw me for a loop. It felt like it came out of nowhere. I was hooked by the premise of course, but the ending just felt awkward and overly sentimental. I’m going to go with 4 stars, because I did really like Annika’s character and the writing style. I don’t really like where the plot ended up, it didn’t even feel like the same story, but it was still well-written. Kind of sappy and sentimental at the end, which wasn’t entirely satisfying for me, but I really enjoyed the book as a whole.
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