"On the Edge of Gone," by Corinne Duyvis

Genre: Fiction, Sci-Fi, Action/Adventure,

Page Count: 450+

Published: 2016 (Amulet Books)

Potential Triggers: drugs,

Mental Health Topics: Autism, Addiction,

On The Edge of Gone is a science fiction novel about a girl named Denise and her mother. The book opens with their lives in a frenzy; a comet is scheduled to hit the earth, it's time to leave for the shelter, and Denise's older sister still isn't home. Denise's mother is determined to stay home until Iris gets back, but Denise knows that it's time to go. Can things ever turn out for good in the end?

One thing I liked about this book was the action in it. You get dumped right into it and there's never a suspenseless moment. Even when there's nothing actively happening and you can maybe destress a little bit, there's still that underlying threat of "but it's not resolved yet". I absolutely adored that in reading this book!

One thing I didn't like, though, was how mental health was represented.

Denise is an autistic character, and we know this mainly because she brings up that she's autistic as a way to explain herself. This happens multiple times over the course of the book and it struck me as not only unrealistic but honestly a bit hurtful. Normally, autistics hide that label of autistic except from those they trust the most and Denise is just exclaiming it to a bunch of strangers? I get it, it could be the end of her life as she knew it, but what if it wasn't? I feel like this could've been handled better. It makes Denise's condition feel more like something that got tossed in there and it gives autism another bad rep, which it certainly didn't need.

It also irked me how people just accepted that she was autistic and that there never were any mean comments about it. That doesn't happen in real life. While again, I get that it was the potential end of the world as they knew it, I feel like some people would get nasty when they're scared and if anything, there would be more horrible insults and the like. Perhaps the arguments didn't tie into the story, but I feel like if you bring in an autistic character, you have to address the general way that we're treated, and this book absolutely didn't do that.

Overall, I'm not sure I would recommend this book. While it was good from a plot standpoint, the mental health representation is honestly just a little bit sad. Not to mention similar things happening to Denise's mother and her addiction situation. If you like sci-fi, feel free to give it a shot. There's nothing inherently horrible about this book, it's just not what I was hoping for when I opened it up to read it.