Jackie Khalilieh

Jessie was just diagnosed as autistic weeks before starting high school. Determined to keep it hidden, she makes a list of goals to cross off - ranging from having two distinct eyebrows, to getting a magical first kiss, and landing a spot in the school musical.

This is such an honest and messy story. So many novels, especially YA, don’t always show the messiness that’s teenage life, but this one shows it great. Jackie Khalilieh writes Jessie as a truly authentic teen with autism: feeling different, being bad at social interactions and ques, being obsessed with one particular interest, along with a lot of other differences. Khalilieh also writes deeply about wearing a mask and what that both looks like and feels like to someone with autism.

Along with truly showing a teen with autism, this story is also a romance, but cute. I’m usually against YA Romance because I find them so cheesy, but this one I actually liked and enjoyed. Jessie meets two boys on her first day of school and both show interest in her - one she catches onto a lot more quickly. Again, I would like to bring up the writing that Khalilieh did here where she talks about Jessie zeroing in on the one boy and the one relationship and how all others don’t really matter too much. I can be bad at that, so I felt that deeply.

Overall, I absolutely loved the representation this book shows and the story that it gives. I believe that, even though it is a YA romance, it’s not overly cheesy, and therefore I can see many readers enjoying this for its autistic representation.

*Thank you Tundra Books and LibraryThing for a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review… (lisätietoja)

Jessie is just starting high school. In this book that covers her freshman year, she is dealing with a recent diagnosis of autism and what that means for her. She's careful about who she shares this with. She meets a new group of friends and has to navigate who is worth being in her inner circle.
She falls head over heals for Levi, who buddies up to her in science as a way to maybe pass the class the second time around. She creates a lists of goals for freshman year. She meets a friend named Griffin who she's hopeful will become her first guy friend.
She works on figuring out what it means to stay true to herself and how to surround herself with people who value and love her along the way.… (lisätietoja)

*received as an finished copy from the publisher

I haven’t picked up a book and read it cover to cover since early August, so to get back into the swing of things I figured some light YA romance would be an easy transition. There’s a *lot* of poor quality coming out in this genre, though, so I was a bit sceptical if Jackie Khalilieh could stand out from the crowd. She treads a very familiar path (outsider girl goes to a new school, crushes on boy, finds friends, ends up with a cute unexpected boyfriend, etc), but the twist that makes her book unique is that her protagonist, Jessie, is Autistic and has to find her way through the perils of high school with this added dimension. At a time when more and more young girls (and older women as well) are being diagnosed as Autistic, this book is one that is sure to find a ready group of readers and help on the route to normalising Autism (and other mental health and cognitive/behavioural challenges) in the real world. Jessie’s character is drawn with a realistic depth, as are the supporting cast, and all the small details like her obsession with the 1990s, her struggles with the “grey” areas of life, and her coping strategies make for an engaging and fun read. I might not have picked this one up on my own if I hadn’t been sent it by the publishers through Library Thing, but I am definitely glad that I got a chance to get behind the scenes in Jessie’s life!… (lisätietoja)