I want to believe that I can be a main character, I can be a leading character in my life, that I can have a happily ever after, that I can find true… - Helen Hoang

Two stereotypes I’ve seen is that autistic people are geniuses. Some autistic people have average intelligence and I think don’t think that’s right to say they all are because those who aren’t might feel disappointed. Another is that autistic people lack empathy or heartless.

Escaping from Vietnam is a huge. It takes a massive amount of bravery, but starting over in a foreign country with a foreign language with no money with everyone depending on you, with racism and sexism, that’s something else entirely. That’s something that she never spoke to me about. I think she did that because she was protecting me. She wanted me to stay innocent. All I saw was her accomplishments, and I thought it was easy — that it was easy to be an immigrant and start over in a place that isn’t entirely kind to you. With this book, I wanted to illustrate that missing part of the story that she didn’t tell me, because it’s important and it might be even harder than escaping from Vietnam.

As I researched, I ran into this very interesting thing where autism seems to display differently in women than in men ... women have learned to mask their autism, and they learn to copy their peers, and they learn to mimic…