Miss Moriarty, I Presume by Sherry Thomas
Nov. 27th, 2021 03:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lightreadsMiss Moriarty, I presume by Sherry Thomas
3/5. Further adventures of AU genderswap Sherlock Holmes except not all that married to Holmes canon (and thank God for it). I don't have much to say about the plot of this book, but I have been thinking about the role of our heroine's sister. No, not that one. The other one. The one with severe nonverbal ASD. The one who appears quietly at least once in each book and who has yet to be involved in any of the A plots. And honestly, I hope she never is. Because right now her role is partly to illuminate the different kind of neuro-atypical that our heroine is, but more importantly her role is – it feels strange even writing this – her role is to be loved and respected and cared for. Her sister takes her out of the care of their (horrible) parents, and the household expands to include her as a matter of course. I'm making this sound ordinary by describing it, and the thing is, the books treat it as ordinary. That's what's so startling about it. She's not a burden to her sister, or an embarrassment, and the books spend zero time on explaining how her sister is a hero for, you know, giving a damn about whether a disabled person lives or dies. The default state in these hero narratives being not giving a damn, you understand. Charlotte just goes about loving her matter-of-factly, and I have been scouring my brain to think of another series that incorporates a disabled person exactly like this -- without fuss, allowed to exist as part of the texture of life without serving a plot function, not the object of heroism but a person receiving love -- and coming up blank.
Content notes: References to child abduction.
3/5. Further adventures of AU genderswap Sherlock Holmes except not all that married to Holmes canon (and thank God for it). I don't have much to say about the plot of this book, but I have been thinking about the role of our heroine's sister. No, not that one. The other one. The one with severe nonverbal ASD. The one who appears quietly at least once in each book and who has yet to be involved in any of the A plots. And honestly, I hope she never is. Because right now her role is partly to illuminate the different kind of neuro-atypical that our heroine is, but more importantly her role is – it feels strange even writing this – her role is to be loved and respected and cared for. Her sister takes her out of the care of their (horrible) parents, and the household expands to include her as a matter of course. I'm making this sound ordinary by describing it, and the thing is, the books treat it as ordinary. That's what's so startling about it. She's not a burden to her sister, or an embarrassment, and the books spend zero time on explaining how her sister is a hero for, you know, giving a damn about whether a disabled person lives or dies. The default state in these hero narratives being not giving a damn, you understand. Charlotte just goes about loving her matter-of-factly, and I have been scouring my brain to think of another series that incorporates a disabled person exactly like this -- without fuss, allowed to exist as part of the texture of life without serving a plot function, not the object of heroism but a person receiving love -- and coming up blank.
Content notes: References to child abduction.
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Date: 2021-12-05 05:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-12-10 09:59 pm (UTC)