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rainwatersparkThe Heart As He Hears It by A.M. Arthur
It's always nice to see a romance in which one of the main characters is disabled and neurodivergent (in this case, it's Isaac, who is partially deaf and has agoraphobia and extreme anxiety issues. Also, Jon had anorexia and a history of emotional abuse).
I enjoyed this book overall, though towards the end, it started to get soap-opera-y and dramatic for drama's sake (I thought Jon acted OOC near the end just to create conflict between him and Isaac). Also, I feel like I don't know enough about agoraphobia and anxiety to comment on how it was handled for Isaac.
I'm not very familiar with anxiety disorders (other than social anxiety), so maybe some of the symptoms overlap with autism, but I couldn't help feeling like Isaac was kind of autistic-coded. His adherence to a strict daily routine, and his freak-out when he deviated from a "rule" while serving guests dinner—I felt like it would've been interesting if he was also explicitly described as autistic.
The Deep of the Sound by Amy Lane
I DNF'ed this one before I got halfway through, largely due to the way it treated autism and mental illness, which I'll get into in a second.
This author's writing style doesn't really do it for me. It took like 25% of the way through the book before the two romantic leads even met, and I don't really think all that description was necessary.
And that brief sex scene between Cal and his boss? Um...okay. I don't have any personal experience in this area, but the idea of Cal being so into pain that he actually, uh, enjoys sex without any kind of lubrication...that strikes me as unrealistic and kind of impossible. Like. I'm pretty sure he should have been bleeding and dealing with interior tissue tearing. Which is obviously highly unpleasant and potentially health-hazardous. That part of the book was a massive turn-off for me.
But let's get into the autism and mental illness thing. The portrayal of mentally ill people, autistic people, or in this case, a character who's mentally ill and autistic (Cal's brother Keir), as violent?
Yeah. No. That's an instant ragequit button for me.
And while we're on this subject, let me just get up on my soapbox for a minute and say that I'm really tired of narratives about neurotypical protagonists caring for disabled neurodivergent family members, and how hard *their* lives are because they have to care for their "damaged" disabled family member (that word is an actual description of Keir in the book, by the way). Disabled neurodivergent characters in these situations are portrayed as having no agency, always resisting medication/therapy because their illness/autism automatically makes them incompetent to understand their situation, somehow, and being a tragic burden at best or a violently psychotic stereotype at worst (and there are shades of both in this book).
I am so, so tired of seeing autistic characters only portrayed in one way: completely unable to care for themselves, banging their heads on the wall when they're not adequately supervised, unable to tolerate any disruption to their routines without an outburst of violence, 100% literal understanding of language all the time, unable to talk to anyone except to infodump about their special interests.
Yes, there are some autistic people like that. But these depictions have real-life consequences. There are people—particularly girls and women, and also people of color—who are never diagnosed as autistic because they don't fit the "stereotype." There are autistic people who learn early on ways of coping and "passing" as neurotypical, in order to survive and avoid total social ostracization—and they're penalized for it by being told, by ableist allistic people, that they can't possibly be autistic or that they can't speak on autistic issues because they're "too high-functioning."
There are plenty of autistic people who are mentally/intellectually competent. Many, if not most, autistic people are aware of their autism (unless they aren't because they were never diagnosed, for the reasons above). They are aware of how it impacts their life, and they do work to cope with being autistic in a hostile world. Many autistic people care about being socially accepted, because being ostracized and rejected sucks. Many, if not most, autistic people do give a damn about their loved ones, and not in *difficult-to-understand, alien, robotic* ways, either.
This book reinforced damaging stigmas about mentally ill people being violent, autistic people being violent, and autistic men being misogynistic creeps by nature of being autistic (since Keir was described as being "obsessed with girls," so Cal has to keep him away from girls). I don't care if Cal and Avery's love story eventually rivaled Romeo and Juliet, Rose and Jack, or whatever other famous love stories exist—there's nothing that can make up for reinforcing these stereotypes.
A quick glance at the top Goodreads reviews have only reinforced my belief that the narrative of Cal's struggles to care for Keir doesn't actually engender sympathy for autistic and mentally ill people. Readers have said things like "Cal's life is so sad" and "I'm glad I'm able-bodied and neurotypical."
It's, honestly, pretty dehumanizing.
Autistic and mentally ill people deserve better.
It's always nice to see a romance in which one of the main characters is disabled and neurodivergent (in this case, it's Isaac, who is partially deaf and has agoraphobia and extreme anxiety issues. Also, Jon had anorexia and a history of emotional abuse).
I enjoyed this book overall, though towards the end, it started to get soap-opera-y and dramatic for drama's sake (I thought Jon acted OOC near the end just to create conflict between him and Isaac). Also, I feel like I don't know enough about agoraphobia and anxiety to comment on how it was handled for Isaac.
I'm not very familiar with anxiety disorders (other than social anxiety), so maybe some of the symptoms overlap with autism, but I couldn't help feeling like Isaac was kind of autistic-coded. His adherence to a strict daily routine, and his freak-out when he deviated from a "rule" while serving guests dinner—I felt like it would've been interesting if he was also explicitly described as autistic.
The Deep of the Sound by Amy Lane
I DNF'ed this one before I got halfway through, largely due to the way it treated autism and mental illness, which I'll get into in a second.
This author's writing style doesn't really do it for me. It took like 25% of the way through the book before the two romantic leads even met, and I don't really think all that description was necessary.
And that brief sex scene between Cal and his boss? Um...okay. I don't have any personal experience in this area, but the idea of Cal being so into pain that he actually, uh, enjoys sex without any kind of lubrication...that strikes me as unrealistic and kind of impossible. Like. I'm pretty sure he should have been bleeding and dealing with interior tissue tearing. Which is obviously highly unpleasant and potentially health-hazardous. That part of the book was a massive turn-off for me.
But let's get into the autism and mental illness thing. The portrayal of mentally ill people, autistic people, or in this case, a character who's mentally ill and autistic (Cal's brother Keir), as violent?
Yeah. No. That's an instant ragequit button for me.
And while we're on this subject, let me just get up on my soapbox for a minute and say that I'm really tired of narratives about neurotypical protagonists caring for disabled neurodivergent family members, and how hard *their* lives are because they have to care for their "damaged" disabled family member (that word is an actual description of Keir in the book, by the way). Disabled neurodivergent characters in these situations are portrayed as having no agency, always resisting medication/therapy because their illness/autism automatically makes them incompetent to understand their situation, somehow, and being a tragic burden at best or a violently psychotic stereotype at worst (and there are shades of both in this book).
I am so, so tired of seeing autistic characters only portrayed in one way: completely unable to care for themselves, banging their heads on the wall when they're not adequately supervised, unable to tolerate any disruption to their routines without an outburst of violence, 100% literal understanding of language all the time, unable to talk to anyone except to infodump about their special interests.
Yes, there are some autistic people like that. But these depictions have real-life consequences. There are people—particularly girls and women, and also people of color—who are never diagnosed as autistic because they don't fit the "stereotype." There are autistic people who learn early on ways of coping and "passing" as neurotypical, in order to survive and avoid total social ostracization—and they're penalized for it by being told, by ableist allistic people, that they can't possibly be autistic or that they can't speak on autistic issues because they're "too high-functioning."
There are plenty of autistic people who are mentally/intellectually competent. Many, if not most, autistic people are aware of their autism (unless they aren't because they were never diagnosed, for the reasons above). They are aware of how it impacts their life, and they do work to cope with being autistic in a hostile world. Many autistic people care about being socially accepted, because being ostracized and rejected sucks. Many, if not most, autistic people do give a damn about their loved ones, and not in *difficult-to-understand, alien, robotic* ways, either.
This book reinforced damaging stigmas about mentally ill people being violent, autistic people being violent, and autistic men being misogynistic creeps by nature of being autistic (since Keir was described as being "obsessed with girls," so Cal has to keep him away from girls). I don't care if Cal and Avery's love story eventually rivaled Romeo and Juliet, Rose and Jack, or whatever other famous love stories exist—there's nothing that can make up for reinforcing these stereotypes.
A quick glance at the top Goodreads reviews have only reinforced my belief that the narrative of Cal's struggles to care for Keir doesn't actually engender sympathy for autistic and mentally ill people. Readers have said things like "Cal's life is so sad" and "I'm glad I'm able-bodied and neurotypical."
It's, honestly, pretty dehumanizing.
Autistic and mentally ill people deserve better.
