The meteor hits on January 29, 2035. That day, Denise, Iris, and her mother are supposed to go to their shelter. Instead, they cannot contact Iris, and on the way to their shelter, they come across Denise’s teacher who needs help. While transporting them to their shelter, the meteor is about to hit and Denise and her mother have to join them in their shelter. However, they are not in a normal shelter but instead are on a ship that plans to escape Earth to the twin planets in a few days. Denise and her mother can only stay for two days and they must leave, but Denise doesn’t think that she and her mother will make it outside of the ship.
I found this @CrankyAutistic’s list of books with autistic main characters written by autistic authors. I had seen this book sitting in my city’s digital library, but I had never actually picked it up. Boy, am I glad that I did.
Denise was such a strong main character. Her sister was missing in action, and her mother, although somewhat lucid, is actually a drug addict. She is trying to fight for her keep on the ship, but she is also fighting her mother as she has drugs and could potentially get them kicked off the ship. It has been like this for awhile after her father left and her sister has been in and out of the house.
An important point was brought up in this book. Denise says that people did not diagnose her as autistic because they thought that she was just a “maladjusted Black girl”. This is a problem now, that kids of color do not get diagnosed because racist adults simply think that it is normal for children of a certain race to act that way, or think that they are just acting out. It is important for people to really recognize the signs, especially in boys, and not just chalk it up to a kid acting out.
I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a diverse dystopian novel with an autistic main character, that has a very interesting plotline that brings up important social issues.
Overall Rating: 5/5