An Un-Calibrated Centrifuge

This is just a mess of my thoughts on Isla. If I rated DNFs, this would get one star for sure.

I think Stephanie Perkins had one good book in her. I really enjoyed Anna and the French Kiss but didn't like Lola and the Boy Next Door (the best parts were the Anna parts).

I thought I'd give Isla a chance though. Maybe Lola was the sophomore slump.

Nope, Isla is terrible. I only got through 100 pages (and I skimmed the last 20 pages). Isla comes of as supremely creepy. She also insists that she's shy too often for me (it's like how the MC in Divergent keeps insisting she's brave... um, stop telling me and just show me).

I found the whole, everyone here is privileged (but one kid wears fake designer glasses?) but Isla is less privileged because she's not popular thing annoying. Those are two different things; don't conflate them.

The DSM might define Asberger Syndrome as "high functioning autism," but I'm pretty sure most A/autistic people find the term ableist. Here's more on labels.

Perkins also uses an ableist slur (the r word). If I were more sensitive to ableism, I would have stopped reading right then. When I read it, I found its use gratuitous. Later it's revealed that Kurt (whom the slur is directed at) is autistic, so its use makes sense within the narrative, but it would have made even more sense if the readers knew he's autistic BEFORE the r word incident. The ordering of those two scenes just made no sense to me.

I enjoyed Anna, and to some extent Lola because I liked the characters. The characters in Isla were pretty flat, even 100 pages in (Josh likes art, Kurt likes maps, Lola likes Josh).

After reading Anna I even said I would read a book about any of the secondary characters. Turns out I didn't mean it (I really meant I would read a book about Rashmi not Josh). Skip Isla and just read Anna and the French Kiss.