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A review by mimosaeyes
When My Heart Joins the Thousand by A.J. Steiger
3.0
This book maybe does a decent job showing how messed up the lives of the two disabled leads are, including fraught interactions with loved ones and the law. But it's just not a good romance, despite being marketed as part of the genre.
Alvie and Stanley's relationship progresses via highly dramatic exchanges and many misunderstandings. It's hard to root for them when you feel like they're codependent and should maybe leave each other be. Sure, there is that sense of "there's no one else for me, it's only you!" but not in a romantic way - rather, in a bad way that says more about the system failing to protect them than any actual compatibility.
And let's not forget that incredibly awkward one-night stand proposed by Alvie. This is not a spoiler, it's on the first page and I think it warrants a warning. It kicks off a whole thing about sex that made me consistently uncomfortable. I don't object to discussing the sexuality of disabled characters; I think especially with autistic characters, there's a danger in media representations of infantalising them by portraying them as incapable of consenting or desiring, when the reality is many more shades of grey. But the whole thing was approached in a very stilted way here.
I most appreciated the bits about the two characters' parents' reactions to their illnesses, the guilt and abuse that they each had to go through. I thought that was the most realistic and affecting part of the book. But that's all in the past; events in the novel's present tend to feel overly dramatic and yet also conveniently resolved (like Alvie's brief homelessness and absolute poverty) so that the book could wrap up in a timely manner.
Still, there is something to the writing - you can tell Steiger put a lot of effort and love into it, and there are moments that feel like they've been worked over and gradually perfected. The end result just doesn't really work for me.
Alvie and Stanley's relationship progresses via highly dramatic exchanges and many misunderstandings. It's hard to root for them when you feel like they're codependent and should maybe leave each other be. Sure, there is that sense of "there's no one else for me, it's only you!" but not in a romantic way - rather, in a bad way that says more about the system failing to protect them than any actual compatibility.
And let's not forget that incredibly awkward one-night stand proposed by Alvie. This is not a spoiler, it's on the first page and I think it warrants a warning. It kicks off a whole thing about sex that made me consistently uncomfortable. I don't object to discussing the sexuality of disabled characters; I think especially with autistic characters, there's a danger in media representations of infantalising them by portraying them as incapable of consenting or desiring, when the reality is many more shades of grey. But the whole thing was approached in a very stilted way here.
I most appreciated the bits about the two characters' parents' reactions to their illnesses, the guilt and abuse that they each had to go through. I thought that was the most realistic and affecting part of the book. But that's all in the past; events in the novel's present tend to feel overly dramatic and yet also conveniently resolved (like Alvie's brief homelessness and absolute poverty) so that the book could wrap up in a timely manner.
Still, there is something to the writing - you can tell Steiger put a lot of effort and love into it, and there are moments that feel like they've been worked over and gradually perfected. The end result just doesn't really work for me.