Which brings me back to my opening point: this is a common trend in portrayals of autistic characters, but can also be the nature of the beast when it comes to secondary characters. I was left with the nagging feeling that Kurt largely existed as a complicating factor in Isla’s relationship(s) and to make her and Josh more appealing in readers’ eyes. Similarly, her new boyfriend Josh accepting and getting along with Kurt paints him in an immediately positive light-Isla nearly swoons with relief.
While I love how much she clearly cared for him, backstory like that risks depicting Isla as saintly for sticking with Kurt despite his eccentricities. In the past, another friend of Isla’s didn’t get along with Kurt and forced Isla to choose between them a similar situation happened when Isla dumped a boyfriend for treating Kurt badly. Kurt’s sections are brief, and while he regularly pops up in Isla’s thoughts, she’s more consumed with her budding relationship with Josh. I was excited whenever he appeared because I looked forward to further exploring his character or his tight, lifelong friendship with Isla, but was disappointed nearly every time-despite knowing that that’s to be expected when reading specifically for a secondary character. They appear when they plot calls for it and are in large part defined by their relationship with the protagonist. In Isla, this is very much the case for Kurt. That means that reviewing the portrayal of autism in books like New York Times bestselling YA romance Isla and the Happily Ever After, in which the titular character’s best friend Kurt is autistic, can be complicated.īy their very nature, secondary characters are, well, secondary. Featuring cameos from fan-favorites Anna, Étienne, Lola, and Cricket, this sweet and sexy story of true love-set against the stunning backdrops of New York City, Paris, and Barcelona-is a swoonworthy conclusion to Stephanie Perkins’s beloved series.Many autistic portrayals-whether in fiction or news media-are problematic because they sideline autistic people, who become important only in how they affect others. But as they begin their senior year back in France, Isla and Josh are forced to confront the challenges every young couple must face, including family drama, uncertainty about their college futures, and the very real possibility of being apart.
And after a chance encounter in Manhattan over the summer, romance might be closer than Isla imagined.
“Stephanie Perkins’s characters fall in love the way we all want to, in real time and for good.” -Rainbow Rowell, Award-winning, bestselling author of Eleanor & Park and Fangirl A New York Times Bestseller Love ignites in the City That Never Sleeps, but can it last? Hopeless romantic Isla has had a crush on introspective cartoonist Josh since their first year at the School of America in Paris.
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