#main boy has asthma; side characters in wheelchairs and two others incidentally with CP;

[aroaessidhe]

2023 reads // twitter thread

Love Letters For Joy

YA contemporary Cyrano de Bergerac retelling

an ace girl with cerebral palsy who’s determined to be valedictorian, with only her academic rival to beat

when her friends start pairing up, she starts to wonder if she wants something like that, and emails the anonymous romance advice email going around her school

#Love Letters For Joy #aroaessidhe 2023 reads #hm. #the good: so many disabled characters! #main boy has asthma; side characters in wheelchairs and two others incidentally with CP; #and like every other character is wearing glasses #(which tbh. is probably just a normal amount of disability i any given group of people but how often do you see that much in a book lmao) #(I also just noticed the BG characters on the cover too) #but it is very…….doesn’t really explore anything in depth and also the drama got pretty comical at the end? #i forgot it was the CDB retelling. #feel like it should have taken the concept and then ran with the natural possibilities for the characters instead of trying to stick to tha #no more YA where the secret anonymous person keeps their identity secret for no reasonable reason and it only causes problems pls #near the end the dude is outed to his parents and kicked out. and like holy shit it does not explore that in depth?? #one of her ‘friends’ is in love with her and after kissing her without consent goes on this aphobic tirade and becomes like a comical vilai #neither of those things are handled very well #also just little things like joy tells her friends that over the course of the book she’s realised she’s pan - #which was not mentioned a single time in her internal narration. there's tons of that kind of thing. telling not showing. #asexual books #while she mentions she's ace a lot she doesn't talk about specific experiences a lot #(which is not an issue but damn i wish it would have done that with Something in the book)