Reviews and Comments

So much future-speculative fiction introduces an interesting idea, discusses it a little bit, and then that's it. But Walkaway introduces idea after idea, and doesn't just discuss it but follows through on the positive and negative outcomes, and how they give rise to the next idea. I thoroughly enjoyed this fraught but optimistic take on what our unfolding journey to the near future might look like. I hope Doctorow is at least partially right, because it sounds like a future I'd want to live in. It sounds like a future I want to help build.

Ben is non-binary. 10 years after their sister left home without a word, they come out to their parents as a high school senior. They kick them out, and the sister they haven't spoken to in a decade takes them in, gets them enrolled in the high school her husband teaches at and is generally a good sister. One of Ben's classmates is Nathan, and the two become closer while Ben is figuring out their new life, but Ben is back in the closet from everyone except their sister, and they are afraid to share who they are with Nathan even as they both begin developing feelings for each other. The asshole parents make a reappearance. Ben eventually comes out to their friends at school. The part about Nate's sexuality in relation to a non-binary partner is kinda glossed over but the ending is generally happy.

Interesting story, but a lot of autism tropes here like the neurotypical person trying to figure out the "puzzle" of the autistic person and explaining social norms to them, and the autistic person being a savant. Little nuance. Even acknowledging it's aimed at younger readers it was still a bit disappointing.

This was written back in 2004, before the DSM update that put Aspergers under ASD. I'm not keen on having my neurotype associated with a Nazi eugenicist. But even that aside, I found the book to be pathologizing, sexist, and ableist. I'm sure the authors' hearts were in the right place, but in the view of this autistic adult, it severely missed the mark.

I know a lot of people liked this book. Maybe I'm not the intended audience. I don't do well with metaphor and I have no idea what this book was about.