He has seen a therapist but his parents vetoed any anti-depressants and he is not getting any help. His parents don’t appear to understand the depth of his problem and continually push him to “get over it”. He has a major depressive disorder with anxiety. He has a script worked out of conversational gambits and he has practiced with this flash cards about recognising social cues. He makes a plan to speak to Jeremey at a neighbourhood picnic. Jeremey Sampson is a year younger than Emmet and Emmet thinks Jeremey looks sad. He hasn’t spoken to him but he’s seen him around the place and has watched him in a non-stalker-y way. He has worked, with a therapist and with the help of his loving and supportive parents, to understand what he needs and to make modifications so he can live fairly happily at home with his mother and father.Įmmet has a crush on a boy who lives across the railway tracks from his house. He is very intelligent, particularly with maths and computer programming (he’s doing a double major in maths and computer science at college) and he’s very self-aware. I don’t believe that one has to experience everything they write about but I do think there are certain advantages to be had by personal experience or by having access to a close relative with personal experience.ġ9 year old Emmet Washington has Autism Spectrum Disorder. I follow you on Twitter and I gather from your tweets that you have some experience with aspects of Jeremey’s side of things (and I believe your husband blogs about having anxiety) and I think that probably helped. It seems to me that you were careful, studied and sensitive in your portrayals of both Emmet and Jeremey and the other people at the Roosevelt. Maybe it’s only me, but there are things I just don’t see until they’re pointed out.įor what it’s worth, I don’t think the representation of disability here was “wrong”. I’m still learning myself on what to look out for but I am happy to see disability represented in romance and, even when it’s wrong, I think the conversation around how it’s wrong is valuable and leads to greater understanding.

Disability is something of a fraught subject in Romancelandia. I feel a little like I’m walking into a potential minefield with this review.

Sometimes I feel like everyone else is carrying a bucket of water but I’m trying to carry an ocean.

Fever Pitch by Heidi Cullinan