This is a super long text I just sent my friend about why I love Elle Mcnicoll but I want to spread the word about how great her and her books are so here it is! I hope I got the important stuff right.
All of elle mcnicoll's books have a neurodivergent protagonist and she herself is autistic and dyspraxic. She's on a mission to write a book in every popular genre with a neurodivergent protagonist, so far she's done contemporary, Sci fi, fantasy and she's doing a teen romance next which I'm super excited for. Her fantasy stuff is my favourite especially like a Curse.
Her debut novel a kind of spark has just been made into a TV show for cbbc and it's got 3 autistic actors as the main sisters in the show and they are all amazing.
Her big thing is wanting the stories to have a plot that's not just like "autistic character's autism is used for xyz, autistic character educates neurotypical people about autism or autistic character is autistic that's so sad and that's it that's the book" . All of her stuff is like "character does super awesome stuff has a really loving family but also happens to be autistic and/or dyspraxic which does affect the story because it's their experience but also there's a frickin dragon here which is cool and we're trying to learn magic." A kind of spark sort of focuses more on addie being autistic as a part of the plot but it's so good because her sister has autistic burnout and they talk about their special interests together and stand up to ignorant and ableist people and discuss masking and it's shown as difficult but it's never shown as something that's wrong with her and it's the most realistic representation of how I am as a person that I've ever come accross in a book. Also there's loads of stuff about sharks and witch trials which is interesting
Elle mcnicoll is an author I love and I believe in what she's trying to do with her books and they're short so a perfect re reading length for me as well!
