A Glimmer of Change
by Elle McNicoll
Pub Date: Oct 14 2025
Read courtesy of netgalley.com
First, I'm really attracted to McNicoll's adroit use of metaphors throughout the book. They allow the reader to get more sophisticated in their depth or understanding of a feeling or event without the author being too wordy. Though some of them may challenge the readers, like one metaphor about being a "cartographer of your own heart," but they don't overwhelm the text.
Initially, I didn't know if the main character was male or female (SPOILER ALERT: she's female), which ends up being somewhat important to the story because of how females historically are portrayed when they are being bossy vs emphatic, snobby vs reserved, and relevant to this story, aggressive vs assertive.
In this story aggressive vs assertive is emphasized on the themes of bullying, being an upstander, and friendship. There are some really good discussion prompts in the book, too, based on these themes. For example, "It'll be bad for a really quick minute. But the good will last forever." Another place for a good discussion are some passages in chapter 14. One is the connection between kindness and integrity. Another is "Distraction is the enemy of anxiety."
There might be a few places where the Britishisms may affect a teen outside of Scotland to stumble. One example is the use of "Bully for him," especially because a theme of the story is bullying.
I believe McNicoll did a great job of helping non-autistic readers understand what their autistic peers might be experiencing. Even concepts like "masking" are well explained within the context of the story, so the terms and concepts aren't preachy and teachy but instead flow naturally from the characters' thoughts and actions.
I'm looking forward to getting this book for my middle school library.
