Under Her Care

3.25
I was very disappointed with this one coz I have heard so many great things about Lucinda Berry, I went into it expecting to love it but all I got was a meh feeling. The book felt so rushed that towards the end I didn't feel like we had got all the answers we needed. But I did like the fact that we got to know more about autism and I learnt a lot more about it.

Some quotes I liked.
1) "A mothers rejection cuts to the core. Its impossible not to feel her grief."2)"Nobody knows the insides of a woman like her daughter"3)"You should worry about the kids who never want to be at home"4)"When you're a kid, you feel things when they're wrong. Everything goes by your feelings because you don't really understand all the stuff going on around you."

This book was a page turner for sure and I thought the protagonist was likable enough. I thought the police officer was trying to undermine Casey (the local autism expert) and that was kind of annoying because we know there's more to it.

In terms of autistic representation, I didn't really mind it but I have a lot of thoughts on it.

Firstly, I do not care if I'm being referred to as someone with autism or an autistic person, but I go with autistic person. I see that Casey leans into what the professional standard is and that doesn't surprise me, because it's not like she engages in online discourse. It's realistic, whether or not I agree. It may or may not be the author's beliefs but it doesn't matter to me. Other terminology is also reflected in current career field, rather than online discourse.

Mason's symptoms were too textbook autism at the beginning and I just knew it had to be coached. For example, Genevieve would obviously lean into the train stereotype because that's all she knows as she isn't autistic. She is also trying to convince other professionals that her son is autistic. I suppose I have my own experiences to reflect on, so that kind of ruins the surprise for me. However, I still didn't mind the unraveling playing out. Although I predicted and interpreted the ruse correctly whilst reading along, the explanation was still chilling and gross. Seeing an Autism Mom™️ fully realized is terrifying. I knew she was one 9% in the book (“Just that she's an expert on autism spectrum disorder, which is great, but I'm the expert on my son. We're going to get that straight from the beginning.”). Genevieve's reasoning is that her child was painfully average very soon after birth, she hardly knew him yet refused to accept him for who he is. She wanted to make him special and control him at the same time.


This is the entire point of the book. Stereotyping autism and showing that developmental or learning conditions can be faked if you try hard enough. Tricking so many professionals over time is psychologically messed up. It makes you question why anyone would induce symptoms and the simple answer is attention. There is the angle of exploitation from Mommy influencers and disabled children who cannot consent. Mason thrives at the end, which shows that he was never given the chance to before and reading his sections of the story is heartbreaking because he's been so abused and developmentally stunted. I do wish his POV was a bit longer.

I wasn't very surprised by a lot of the ending but I should have guessed that Samantha and her boyfriend were the blackmailers, so well done for not using a random character as a cheap exit.

In conclusion, this book made me think a lot about myself and how far I or people will go to maintain a good image. I don't find this representation offensive because there's a plot to justify why things are the way they are and that these aren't usual circumstances. I don't view thrillers as highly likely or realistic but possible. Also not everything is applicable to everyone and that doesn't make it bad representation but this wouldn't matter because it isn't really autism. In the end it's about intention and research, which has been done.

Here’s another I read for my book club, the Hudson Valley Housewives, and it’s another I probably would not have read without it being someone’s pick.

This is a kind of crime mystery, but instead of a cop or detective, the main POV is a recruited children’s psychologist, Casey Walker, that specializes in autism. The mayor’s wife has been killed, and an autistic teen, Mason, son to a kind of celebrity content creator, was found at the scene covered in blood and uncontrollable.

I’ve never read this author, was unfamiliar with them, so throughout the continuously deep information dumps on autism and therapy, all I found myself thinking was, “god I hope this was well researched.” And after finishing and seeing the author’s bio, I do feel more at ease on the knowledge part, but I found villainizing a special needs teen was super risky.

I would say that the information in the above paragraph, as well as the way it was weaved into the possibility of a murder happening, was definitely one of the few things that kept me engaged and roped in. There are several attempts at unseen twists, however they are so straight forward that there’s little to no surprise with almost all of them, IE. Casey thinks the mother is doing something and the twist is…simply that she’s right??

The ending has a winding lead up to a scene right in front of a swamp, the author kind of remarks on the possibility of animals within the water, and then it literally leads to nothing at all. The final twist involves something that I do not believe was well threaded into the story, to the point where it comes out of left field. It felt wasted, or like being cheated.

The cover had me thinking that they could have been going for like a southern belle/beauty pageant thing with the crown. The watery swirls could have been some hint to the swamp at the end or something, but I think honestly, the most likely thing is that this was a real cheap stock cover that got zero thought. And while the title’s color certainly pops, I’d much rather have a cover that matches the story somehow.

Overall, I will say that I was at least never bored while reading this. A story of a mother’s love, or lack thereof, and her willingness to do anything for attention.