Review of 'The Girl He Used to Know' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
I found this to be a well done and wholesome romance until the end rushed in and ruined the book slightly. There was no need for any necessary drama.
The portrayal of autism was mostly on point. However I had a big problem with Annika looking like a super model, because that should not be the point.
Additionally, it was weird that she did not get tested on autism already in elementary school. Teachers would have told her mom already in the 80s. She also would have trained with Annika before she went to college. No mother would send their 18 year old autistic girl alone to college, when she didn't know if she could handle the social context (It was obvious that Annika had Autism, I don't know why everyone acted like that was a secret hidden elephant in the room)
And I also did not understand, why Jonathan …
I found this to be a well done and wholesome romance until the end rushed in and ruined the book slightly. There was no need for any necessary drama.
The portrayal of autism was mostly on point. However I had a big problem with Annika looking like a super model, because that should not be the point.
Additionally, it was weird that she did not get tested on autism already in elementary school. Teachers would have told her mom already in the 80s. She also would have trained with Annika before she went to college. No mother would send their 18 year old autistic girl alone to college, when she didn't know if she could handle the social context (It was obvious that Annika had Autism, I don't know why everyone acted like that was a secret hidden elephant in the room)
And I also did not understand, why Jonathan left for New York, and didn't go back to pick Annika up, but then Annika gets blamed for what she did. If he had loved her enough, he should have known that he needs to talk to her eye to eye, or she will run away.
At the end, when she got the diagnosis with social anxiety, that was also weird. The point of being on the autistic spectrum means, there are certain social things you can't do. They just can't, it doesn't work. And that is fine. They don't "have" to be able to do them. And you can't "train" or "medicate" it out of them. They are who they are and the same way you cannot take our regular fear away, you cannot take their social anxiety away. She was already high functioning, there was no need to ask more of her.
But I really liked the interactions in the memories, Annikas character, she trying to grow up and finding love and her own place. College Jonathan was cool, Jonathan past college was bad.