Reviews with content warning for Ableism - Þernan

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Reviews tagging 'Ableism'

Þernan by Nita Prose

129 reviews

plainscaribou's review against another edition

3.0

dark emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I throughly enjoyed listening to the audiobook for this one, enjoying the cozy mystery vibe during my winter hibernation. But then, in the last hour or so, I found myself exclaiming “Wait…what…?” not once but twice and rewinding to try and connect what exactly had just happened. Two “twists” at the end of the book felt misaligned with the rest of the novel, with the implications of these reveals rendering the protagonist, Molly the Maid, suddenly quite unreliable as a narrator and bringing about a tonal shift that, frankly, didn’t seem to go with the rest of the book. Felt this could’ve used some editing to better develop themes, tone, and set-up for the conclusion.

Trigger warnings: terminal illness, assisted suicide/“mercy” killing, domestic abuse, bullying/harassment/negativity toward neurodivergent individual

Content Warnings

katzenfrau18's review against another edition

3.25

emotional medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Enjoyable cozy mystery, but there is a strong dose of ableism & somewhat stereotypical view of neurodivergence (main character reads as a DSM litany of autistic traits, but is not labeled as such). Found it comforting as an autistic reader, but also made me sigh.

Content Warnings

andykarnik's review against another edition

1.0

emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I wish I had done any research before picking this one up.

From the blurb alone, it's clear Molly's "quirky ineptitude at pick up social cues" is meant to infer autism, but wow is it poorly handled. (Also notice that the author will never admit that the character has autism, just that she is based on neurodivergent children she used to teach.) Major spoilers to illustrate my point:

Molly is savvy enough to think of a way to dispose of a murder weapon mere moments after fainting from the shock of the killer being in the room, and yet so naive that's she's vacuuming up mystery white dust for months without ever wondering what it is or if anything about that situation is off?

Honestly it's the constant naivete that most drove me crazy. Though the black-and-white thinking about rules that is suddenly VERY grey was another annoying inconsistency.

There are also 3 big reveals towards the conclusion. One felt very unnecessary

(the implication that Mr. Preston is her grandfather)

and further enforced the idea that no one would like Molly on a personal level unless there was a significant reason to do so. One was a decently powerful moment, but felt like it didn't belong in the same story as the rest of it

the fact that Molly killed her grandmother

. And the final one was ... odd. It made me feel like the whole story was disingenuous with the reader.

Our protagonist knew who the killer was all along and never even THOUGHT about it? The reader is left with a murder mystery where the murderer is... not really one of the characters.

Content Warnings

oxfordcommas91's review against another edition

3.0

emotional funny mysterious fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Hmmm. This book didn’t really work for me.
First - the main character of Molly. I think we are supposed to assume that she

is on the autism spectrum, and as someone who isn’t on the spectrum myself I cannot speak to whether or not she was depicted in a respectful and/or accurate way

but I did feel like she was written as a caricature of assumptions regarding who she “should be” rather than a complex and fully fleshed out person. There were things she did and said that didn’t exactly square with how you’d think the character would react.
Second, I didn’t find the twists in the plot (especially since it was supposed to be a murder mystery) as very compelling or believable. You sorta see things coming a million miles away. The book was semi frustrating in that regard, but was a quick and easy read for someone who just wants something they can pick up and speed through in a matter of days (or honestly, hours). I didn’t have major qualms with this book but I’m also not sure I’d go out of my way to recommend it to others, either.

Content Warnings

gabibartmann's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous challenging hopeful tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

A 5 star read for sure!!! Delightful! The ending was NOT what I expected

Content Warnings

kwthor's review against another edition

5.0

emotional hopeful mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

mmm_a_r_i_a_h's review against another edition

mysterious medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I most certainly do not get the hype for this one. The writing style is easy to read, even easier to skim which was much needed to get through it. The main character is presumably an autistic female with the most egregious portrayal I've ever read. This book is ableist and racist. The autistic woman and brown man are saved by the posh white man. Yes, the characters were diverse, but they were token characters used as tropes. With every criticism I have of this book, the story itself had potential. Maybe it needed a different author that has some more awareness about diversity. This also gives a very young feel. Maybe it's the childish speaking that comes with the portrayal of an autistic woman-- adorable in Scooby Doo, not in an adult mystery novel and further infantilizing the autistic character.

Content Warnings

booksoversecondbreakfast's review against another edition

2.0

challenging mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

As an autistic woman, I felt so much frustration reading this book. While I found Molly to be a very likable character and a woman with whom I would most likely enjoy being friends, I felt that the author made Molly out to be too much of a caricature of an autistic woman. It is not directly said that Molly is autistic; still, she clearly aligns with all of the DSM characteristics of ASD, and she significantly reminds me of both myself when I was younger as well as my husband, who is also autistic.

The aspect of the book that bothered me the most was how Molly's autistic characteristics were presented as character flaws. The author put ableist words into Molly's mouth, peppering the text with negative comments about Molly, both from her own mouth and the mouths of others. Here are some examples:

"I felt horrible, like a complete fool." - Molly about herself, page 58
"Molly the Mutant. Roomba the Robot. The formality freak." - Molly listing nicknames her coworkers have given her, page 171
"But even as I say it, I realize I'm a fool." - Molly about herself, page 258

This large number of comments of this sort felt insulting to me as a member of her neurodivergent audience, especially considering that this was written by an author who has not revealed herself to be neurodivergent. The book was clearly written with a neurotypical audience in mind, seemingly at the expense of her neurodivergent audience. It made me wonder if she wrote Molly's character to express her own ableist opinions. I am all for autistic representation in books, and I'm not entirely against non-autistic people writing autistic characters, but I just don't think this was done right. Another reviewer (https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8LyMDBA/) mentioned that this felt very 'othering,' and I must agree with her.

Sally Hepworth's The Good Sister is another book with an autistic main character, written by a neurotypical author but in a way that didn't perpetuate negative stereotypes. The Good Sister even has similar themes of an autistic person being taken advantage of by someone they trust, but it handles this theme in a way that seems much more respectful to the book's autistic audience.

Honestly, I do not understand why this book has so many positive reviews calling it a cozy book. Reading the first two-thirds of this book felt physically painful, and I considered DNFing it several times. I just felt an abundance of pain for Molly and all of the horrible things she went through, thinking both back to my own related experiences in my youth or thinking about how something like this could happen to my autistic loved ones. The book got better around the two-thirds mark because it started presenting Molly in less of a negative light, but it still contained themes reinforcing harmful stereotypes about ASD. For example, after only one day of having new friends, Molly thought, "I will recognize the expression instantly. I will know it means fear because I'm getting better at this—understanding the subtle cues, the body language that expresses emotional states." That's just not how neurodivergence works, and it was frustrating to read.

Despite this book's harmful qualities, it does have some good things going for it. For the most part, the kind characters are fairly loveable and well thought-out, the story is well-written, and the plot kept me wanting to see things turn out for Molly. As a lover of slow-paced, character-centered plots, I found this book to be paced wonderfully. The book's final third was highly engaging and interesting, and the twists differed a bit from my initial assumptions. I also appreciated that it had a well-resolved and satisfying ending.

Overall, I did not find this an enjoyable read, but I can see how it might be a pleasant read for people who don't notice all the ableism. I'm glad I only borrowed this book from the library because I don't anticipate rereading this, recommending this book to others, or reading the rest of this series by this author. There's a lot of disability activism that's left to be done to improve autistic representation in media. Still, unfortunately, I do not recommend this book to anyone seeking more authentic ASD representation.

Content Warnings