A review by sundazebookcafe
Life Hacks For a Little Alien by Alice Franklin

hopeful informative inspiring sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.75

Thanks Quercus Books and NetGalley for my advanced reader copy!

Life Hacks For a Little Alien is a sweet story about humanness, language, and the differences that makes us ‘us’. Written in a second-person narrative, I admittedly found this really hard to read – I’m unused to this style. However, I soon found my footing and thought it was a smart device to make you, the reader, feel as uncomfy as our narrator, a young girl with autism. As she traverses through school, homeschooling, and other such milestones in childhood, we see the narrator’s struggles with being different to the other children. Her observations of the world are searing, laser-sharp, only the grown-ups don’t understand, the other kids call her an alien, something she’ll remember for years and even begin referring to herself as. Franklin’s treatment of the narrator is tender and soft, and peels back how it feels to live in a confusing world.

This is a sweet, heartwarming story that provides a mirror-clear representation of what it’s like to be neurodivergent. Having said that, I’m neurotypical so it might be best to take that with a pinch of salt! Once you get past the unusual second-person perspective, the story is genuinely lovely and I’ll be recommending this to many!