As an autistic person, I’m intrigued to see the representation of neurodivergence in fiction, so I would like some recommendations of books featuring characters with any form of neurodivergence – preferably a protagonist, but any type of character is good.
Also, just to specify, I’ve read The Curious Incident of The Dog in The Night Time, The Kiss Quotient is on my TBR, and I read Rain, Rein and Reign when I was a kid.
by bananachip868
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Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem
Queens of Geek by Jen Wilde. I loved that book so much. And if you are into horror: Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle. I’m not quite finished with it yet, but I’m really liking it.
An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon
The Rosie Project.
Murderbot from the Murderbot Diaries (not explicitly neurodivergent but certainly has behaviors that made me as an autistic person feel very seen).
Act Your Age Eve Brown by Talia Hibbert if you like/don’t mind romance and sexual content! Both main characters are autistic 🙂
The London Eye Mystery by Siobhan Dowd.
Autism (Protagonist)
“Planet Earth is Blue,” by Nicole Panteleakos
“The Stallion and His Peculiar Boy,” by M.J. Evans
“Odd One Out,” by Genevieve McKay
“Show Us Who You Are,” by Elle McNicoll
“A Kind of Spark,” by Elle McNicoll
“The Good Sister,” by Sally Hepworth
“The Girl He Used to Know,” by Tracey Gravis Graves
“The Half-Life of Planets,” by Emily Franklin and Brendan Halpin
“Don’t Tell, Don’t Tell, Don’t Tell,” by Liane Shaw
“Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close,” by Jonathan Safran Foer
“The Real Boy,” by Anne Ursu
“A Boy Called Bat,” “Bat and the Waiting Game,” and, “Bat and the End of Everything,” by Elana K. Arnold
“Mockingbird,” by Kathryn Erskine
“The Horse is Never Wrong,” by Mary Pagones
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Autism (Not Protagonist)
“Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend,” by Mathew Dicks
“The Silent Boy,” by Lois Lowry
“Eye Contact,” by Cammie McGovern
“My Sweet Audrina,” by V.C. Andrews
“Because of the Rabbit,” by Cynthia Lord
“Rules,” by Cynthia Lord
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Down-Syndrome (Protagonist)
“Free as a Bird,” by Gina McMurchy-Barber
“We Spy,” by Sean Adelman
“The Wild Kid,” by Harry Mazer
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Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (Protagonist)
“As Simple as it Seems,” by Sarah Weeks
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Intellectual Disability (Protagonist)
“The Story of Beautiful Girl,” by Rachel Simon
“Flowers for Algernon,” by Daniel Keyes
“The Sound and the Fury,” by William Faulkner (only the protagonist in part 1)
“Against All Odds,” by Paul Kropp
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Intellectual Disability (Not Protagonist)
“Of Mice and Men,” by John Steinbeck
“Poisoned,” by Mary Mecham
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Dyslexia (Protagonist)
“Fish in a Tree,” by Lynda Mullaly Hunt
“Thank You, Mr. Falkner,” by Patricia Polacco
“A Pony for Keeps,” by Jeanne Betancourt
“Ponies on Parade,” by Jeanne Betancourt
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Psychopathy (Protagonist)
“Convenience Store Woman,” by Sayaka Murata
Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant had a side character with autism that I just loved. It’s ocean horror but if that’s up your alley it’s fun!
because how often do you get a female autistic character that isn’t stereotyped or infantalized?
Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer is narrated by an autistic woman who is serving as a biologist on an expedition to a mysterious and dangerous location. It’s a spooky sci-fi book, and as a neurodivergent person myself, one of my favorites
Percy Jackson books
Lots of great recs in here—just adding The Ojja Wojja by Madeline Visaggio
L’enfant Bleu by Henry Bauchau
The Dentist by Tim Sullivan is the first book in his DS Cross series. I really enjoyed this police procedural whose MC, DS Cross, has Asperger’s (on the autism spectrum). Not an action-packed thriller but a mystery. The story is how the MC has a very different way of solving crimes. A very good read!