Mixed feelings

/Something More/ recounts Jessie Kassis' first year of high school. Jessie, our first-person narrator, is a fifteen-year old Palestinian-Canadian girl who has just been assessed as autistic. By a remarkable coincidence, author Jackie Khalilieh is an autistic Palestinian-Canadian woman. The publisher's blurb pretty much gives away the main plot, "Jessie gets more than she bargained for when two very different boys steal her heart". So, yes, it's a bad-boyfriend good-boyfriend triangle. It's OK that the publishers reveal this, because it will in fact be obvious to you almost immediately where the plot is heading. And that's fine! There's nothing wrong with a new author putting her own stamp on an old familiar story. Every story we read is to some extent a retelling.

Jessie takes a long time to figure out the good boyfriend/bad boyfriend situation, and this leads to my only substantial criticism of the plot. Because what is going on is so obvious to the reader, this part (which is most of the book) drags. You wish that she would just get on with it. Now, to be clear, it is not implausible. We all know that when the heart is involved, it can be difficult to see what's right in front of you. Jessie's difficulty in understanding what's happening is believable. It is just a tiny bit tedious.

Only a tiny bit, though, because Jessie's feelings are powerful and vividly portrayed. In fact, to be honest, it was a bit more vivid than I personally was entirely comfortable with. It's a roller coaster ride with no seatbelt. I definitely had that too-much-information feeling at points, and in the climactic scene <spoiler>Jessie's speech after the dress rehearsal of /Little Shop of Horrors/</spoiler>, I was kind of watching through my fingers, whispering, "No, Jessie. Please don't do this." But she does. It was a little too much for me, but some readers will *LOVE* it, for sure.

Finally, I was confused by the presentation of autism. In her Acknowledgements, Khalilieh writes,

<blockquote>People will try to relate to us by saying things like, “I’m an introvert, I get it,” but they could never begin to understand what it’s like to exist inside our minds -- our beautiful, complicated, hilarious, frustrating, typeA, know-it-all, sweet, innocent (and that’s just the tip of the iceberg) minds.*</blockquote>

This is not the first time I have read assertions like this from autistic persons, that the autistic mind is so categorically different from the neurotypical mind that a neurotypical person "could never begin to understand" an autistic person. ("Could never begin"! Think how strong a statement that is!) Yet, as I read the novel, I had no difficulty relating to Jessie. (Well done, Ms Khalilieh!) Nothing in her behavior, emotions, and motivation struck me as being outside the normal range for a teenage girl.

I don't know quite what to make of this contrast. Is the Otherness of the autistic mind being exaggerated? Or is Khalilieh's portryal of Jessie incomplete or inaccurate? Or perhaps it is written in a secret code that only autistic persons can decipher, so that when they read this book, they read a quite different book from the one I read? I am confused.

Thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Random House Canada, Tundra Books for an advance reader copy of /Something More/. This review expresses my honest opinions. To be released 6-Jun-2023.

*Quotes are from an advance reader copy and may therefore change before publication. Any inaccuracies will be corrected on the release date, 6-Jun-2023.

this was a beautifully done teen romance novel, it was what I was hoping for from the description. I loved that the main character was Palestinian-Canadian girl with autism, she worked as a real person and still be a interesting person. I enjoyed the rest of the characters and going on this journey with them. It was a great romance novel and I'm glad I read this.

"I try to think up an excuse to get out of telling them what happened, but when I compare my secrets to theirs, well . . . mine sound juvenile, at best. So I start from the dance and share how Levi and I almost kissed. Then I tell them how Levi comforted me at the pond that day before inviting me to lunch. I end with the news that he and Liv are dating."