17-year-old autistic orphan Alvie Fitz doesn't fit in, and she doesn't care. She's spent years swallowing meds and bad advice from doctors and social workers. Adjust, adapt. Pretend to be normal. It sounds so easy. If she can make it to her eighteenth birthday without any major mishaps, she'll be legally emancipated. Free. But if she fails, she'll become a ward of the state and be sent back to the group home. All she wants is to be left alone to spend time with her friend, Chance, the one-winged hawk at the zoo where she works. She can bide her time with him until her emancipation. Humans are overrated anyway.
Then she meets Stanley, a boy who might be even stranger than she is — a boy who walks with a cane, who turns up every day with a new injury, whose body seems as fragile as glass. Without even meaning to, she finds herself getting close to him. But Alvie remembers what happened to the last person she truly cared about. Her past stalks her with every step, and it has sharp teeth. But if she can find the strength to face the enemy inside her, maybe she'll have a chance at happiness after all.
"Boundaries and routine make up the foundation of the protective wall Alvie’s been building around herself since her mother died when she was 11, but 19-year-old college student Stanley Finkel shakes that foundation, gently and gradually forcing Alvie out of her comfort zone.... A gorgeous love story of depth and raw emotion that beautifully dismantles the ugly perceptions of autism." — Kirkus Reviews
Recommended Age | 14 and up |
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Author | A. J. Steiger |
ISBN | 0062656473 |
Publication Date | Feb 6, 2018 |
Publisher | HarperTeen |
Language | English |