Kathryn Erskine

Maybe I've just read too many books with autistic main characters, but the narrator in this one seemed like a mashing together of all the Aspergers traits I've seen in other Aspergers characters in other books. Still, the writing was good and the story was touching. The author's note at the end really put me off because it made the whole story seem completely didactic. But if I hadn't read it, I would've walked away thinking this was a decent book.

And now it's won the National Book Award for Young People's Literature! I can hardly agree, but I do find myself thinking of Caitlin from time to time when my mind is wandering while someone's talking to me and I have to remind myself to Look At The Person.

Regarding it's comparison to [b:Out of My Mind|6609765|Out of My Mind|Sharon M. Draper|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1275674397s/6609765.jpg|6803732], I completely prefer this one. But both books have this problem of too many problems. You can't heap every trouble in the world on your main character. It's too much. It's a soap opera. It's overkill.… (more)

A fairly realistic voice for an autistic protagonist. I found it preferable to the other YA autism book I read at the same time ([b:Al Capone Does My Shirts|89716|Al Capone Does My Shirts|Gennifer Choldenko|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1309198452s/89716.jpg|2952174]), but not having read YA in a long time, parts seemed very superficial. In addition, the character sometimes seemed young or naive in a way that does not sync with my experience with high functioning individuals on the autism spectrum… (more)