Whitcoulls recommends Chanelle Moriah and Jessamine Chan

I Am Autistic by Chanelle Moriah. A New Zealander who has written an interactive and informative guide to autism – as they say, by someone diagnosed with it. It explains a huge amount about autism – why autistics sometimes behave in the way they do, how they see and interact with the world, and really helps with better understanding. I think it’s been done both for the interested reader, like me, (and parents, siblings, workmates etc) but also very much for fellow autistics (whether diagnosed or not) who may see themselves in these pages and have some sense of belonging – there are spaces to write notes and it’s a very useful package. 
The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan. This is Handmaid’s Tale territory. Frida is a solo mother, struggling to hold it all together and when she one day leaves her child alone for a few hours while she ducks into work to pick something up and gets distracted – she’s eventually sentenced by the court to attend a School for Good Mothers where women who have transgressed – sometimes in the slightest of ways – are removed from their children and sent away for a year’s re-education. The narrative about what this entails is spooky and awful. Of course, there is a parallel School for Good Fathers nearby but the men aren’t subject to nearly the same level of oppressive rigour and as always women are held to a much higher standard. She does her 12 months and then when she gets out finds that the nightmare doesn’t end. It’s darkly dystopian but in a way that you feel could be just around the corner, the way the world is going.

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