Liu Woods

I have wanted the opportunity to punch the author in the face for many years. I read this book in middle school shortly before learning about my autism diagnosis, and it made me feel like absolute trash. The author doesn't seem to have considered that many autistic people read books, especially to escape the pressures of people trying to force them to be someone else. If someone hates their little brother for being a "burden" to their social life, that's not the little brother's problem, disability or no disability. It would also be nice if the autistic little brother was written as a full-fledged character, rather than a conglomeration of autistic traits that neurotypical readers are supposed to find annoying and burdensome. Re-enforced my belief that everyone I meet is naturally annoyed by me unless I work my hardest to pretend to be someone I'm not, so I'd better pick between hiding who I am or believing everyone I talk to hates me even if there's no indication that they actually do.

Looking at reviews online, a lot of people seem to like it, so you might feel differently about it than me. I, for one, do not like it because the title character solves big issues with a ring that has very few limits to it's power, then cannot understand why humans have never managed to solve them before. He is an overly perfect character, and the bad guys feel like caricatures. I support environmentalism, but I feel like the complexity of these issues should be acknowledged. It's not a simple problem that we can instantly solve, and people aren't refusing to do their part simply out of greed.