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fig29 's review for:
Love Lessons in Starcross Valley
by Lucy Knott
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
medium-paced
love lessons in starcross valley is a cute, quick read. torn between 3 and 4 stars, so i'm going to call it 3.5 rounded down.
cws: cheating subplot (not the mcs, but one of the mc's exes), a lot of food mentions, ableism (against an autistic child).
the first little bit of the book was hard to follow. we immediately open in the prologue with our main character, marnie, talking about things that had happened in her life (her parents split, she's no longer with her bf), and it was a little disjointing to read/understand at first. i thought i was reading a sequel to a book that i hadn't read. things become more comprehensible as marnie goes back to her hometown, but then we don't see the love interest again for the first half of the book - marnie focuses on her platonic relationships instead, such as with her best friend and her sister.
i did, though, love the love interest. nova was unique, well-rounded, blunt, and just such a great love interest. her being a paleontologist is cool and i was so jealous of her. i am prepared to defend nova with all my heart. she has done nothing wrong ever.
one of my biggest flaws with this book was its repetitiveness when describing mundane things, like marnie's outfits. there are a LOT of descriptions of her outfits and hairstyles & its reading like a wattpad fanfic (not an ao3 fic) at points. (like it reads like: she threw her hair up in a messy bun and put on this exact outfit btw heres the polyvore link to the outfit i just described in painstaking detail).
however, my biggest issue with the book was the autism portrayal. 1/3 of the way in, we have a plotline "dealing w" an autistic child. i cant find anything about the author being autistic (someone please correct me if im wrong), so this entire thing feels like a neurotypical savior. the mc literally is like “wow people aren’t treating this child nicely. i will be the first nice person in her life.” the main character was very proud of herself for being one of the only people to treat this child nicely. as an autistic reader/reviewer, this felt infantilizing to an extent, and i understand it was done as a plot device (one of the kid's special interests is dinosaurs, the love interest was a paleontologist, i see where the author was going).
i was just like paislee when i was younger; i was angry when people couldn't understand me/when i couldn't understand them, and i loved dinosaurs. overall though, i didnt LOVE the autism portrayal in the novel, nor did i find it completely necessary. autistic people are not plot devices. that said, i did appreciate some of the less popular stims being included like playing w someones hands. i am only one autistic reader/reviewer and obviously other autistic readers and reviewers will have different takes on the rep in this novel. i love that autism is becoming more normalized in literature, i just think this could have been handled a little less savior-y.
all in all, i likely would recommend the book to friends - i love sapphic books, i love that autism was included on the page, but i would caution anyone to go in with a scrutinizing gaze for autism being a plot device like that.
thank you to netgalley, head of zeus publishing, and lucy knott for this advanced copy in return for my honest review.
cws: cheating subplot (not the mcs, but one of the mc's exes), a lot of food mentions, ableism (against an autistic child).
the first little bit of the book was hard to follow. we immediately open in the prologue with our main character, marnie, talking about things that had happened in her life (her parents split, she's no longer with her bf), and it was a little disjointing to read/understand at first. i thought i was reading a sequel to a book that i hadn't read. things become more comprehensible as marnie goes back to her hometown, but then we don't see the love interest again for the first half of the book - marnie focuses on her platonic relationships instead, such as with her best friend and her sister.
i did, though, love the love interest. nova was unique, well-rounded, blunt, and just such a great love interest. her being a paleontologist is cool and i was so jealous of her. i am prepared to defend nova with all my heart. she has done nothing wrong ever.
one of my biggest flaws with this book was its repetitiveness when describing mundane things, like marnie's outfits. there are a LOT of descriptions of her outfits and hairstyles & its reading like a wattpad fanfic (not an ao3 fic) at points. (like it reads like: she threw her hair up in a messy bun and put on this exact outfit btw heres the polyvore link to the outfit i just described in painstaking detail).
however, my biggest issue with the book was the autism portrayal. 1/3 of the way in, we have a plotline "dealing w" an autistic child. i cant find anything about the author being autistic (someone please correct me if im wrong), so this entire thing feels like a neurotypical savior. the mc literally is like “wow people aren’t treating this child nicely. i will be the first nice person in her life.” the main character was very proud of herself for being one of the only people to treat this child nicely. as an autistic reader/reviewer, this felt infantilizing to an extent, and i understand it was done as a plot device (one of the kid's special interests is dinosaurs, the love interest was a paleontologist, i see where the author was going).
i was just like paislee when i was younger; i was angry when people couldn't understand me/when i couldn't understand them, and i loved dinosaurs. overall though, i didnt LOVE the autism portrayal in the novel, nor did i find it completely necessary. autistic people are not plot devices. that said, i did appreciate some of the less popular stims being included like playing w someones hands. i am only one autistic reader/reviewer and obviously other autistic readers and reviewers will have different takes on the rep in this novel. i love that autism is becoming more normalized in literature, i just think this could have been handled a little less savior-y.
all in all, i likely would recommend the book to friends - i love sapphic books, i love that autism was included on the page, but i would caution anyone to go in with a scrutinizing gaze for autism being a plot device like that.
thank you to netgalley, head of zeus publishing, and lucy knott for this advanced copy in return for my honest review.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Ableism, Infidelity
ableism against an autistic child, by other adults in the book.