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ihateburgers t1_ixupdwh wrote

I liked it. The main character kind of came off as someone on the spectrum and I liked seeing the world through her eyes. It was an interesting perspective. Then how her “otherness” is received in her social circle. Her family wants her to “fit in” so bad they don’t mind that she’s living with a really abusive man-child. People can be cruel to others that they perceive as different and I feel that reading about it from the point of view of the victim helps build empathy.

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Kitsik_ t1_ixvla3p wrote

Haven't read the book but since some people want to analyze and categorize her, proposing another idea between ASD and ASPD – schizoid PD. Some potential characteristics being: preferring to be alone (extreme introverion), indifference to social conventions and criticism, flat affect and/or stunted emotions, apathy towards relationships, introspection, secretiveness, not wanting to stand out, possible lack of empathy, lack of goals and aspirations etc. Usually not violent or impulsive or lacking the ability to read facial expressions, often confused with ASD...

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Ilikeitrough69xxx t1_ixvx6jv wrote

She comes up on lists for avoidant PD as well. Haven’t read it yet though, so I’m not sure how accurate that is!

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foundationsofvnm t1_ixy1wjn wrote

I agree with this. I’m autistic, and while I do think she shows a lot of symptoms, I don’t think that’s the only thing she has (if she is autistic at all). It’d be fascinating to hear a psychologist’s thoughts on her

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Tea_4_thee t1_ixvzmtg wrote

I think you’re on to something here, Almost all of these traits fit the character to a tee (the exception being secretiveness).

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[deleted] t1_ixv43c6 wrote

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Tea_4_thee t1_ixvb6jo wrote

A lot of the people I’ve seen speculate that that Keiko is autistic are autistic themselves so I don’t know if saying people see her that way because of harmful stereotypes is a fair assessment. For whatever reason a lot of autistic people see themselves in the character.

Keiko definitely doesn’t strike me as a sociopath, one of the main symptoms of ASPD is a disregard for rules and Keiko’s main comfort in life is following rules she cares about rules deeply. So deeply she structures her whole life around rules, that would be incredibly out of character for a sociopath.

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communityneedle t1_ixw9b44 wrote

Autistic person here. She's the single most relatable character I've ever encountered in all of literature so far. (Except the part where she considers killing the baby.)

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SonofBeckett t1_ixw44zk wrote

The only sociopathic part to me was her casual willingness to violently silence a child. It’s a quick moment, and she doesn’t act on the impulse, but I had to rewind the audiobook to make sure I caught it right. She definitely sees violence as a viable solution to everyday problems. I read her as having tendencies towards and antisocial personality disorder rather than being a true sociopath.

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[deleted] t1_ixvel8q wrote

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Tea_4_thee t1_ixvhnoc wrote

No, I wouldn’t consider traditional gender norms (oppression) to be the type of ‘rules’ (I don’t think that can even be considered a rule) that ASPD diagnostic criteria is referring to. If that was the case the entire feminist movement would check that box.

Even if those were the types of rules that the diagnostic criteria was referring to Keiko does not disregard those rules. She doesn’t understand them but she doesn’t disregard them either. she tries very hard to follow those rules. So hard she lets a random man take over her apartment in an attempt to follow those rules.

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[deleted] t1_ixvj07g wrote

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Tea_4_thee t1_ixvp2cl wrote

Yes that is mostly what I was responding to, you included it in your interpretation so I don’t think it should be surprising that somebody may have thoughts about that part of your interpretation.

>she also never cares about social norms, she only does those things to get people off her back so she can live quietly

That wasn’t my interpretation, if that was the case I don’t think Keiko would frequently seek out her sisters counsel which results in attracting more attention to her ‘weird’ habits. Regardless I don’t think social norms and rules can be considered the same thing. Of course everybody will look at things differently that’s just the nature of discussing books. I just don’t think she could be considered a sociopath, she doesn’t present the key symptoms (irritability, manipulation, risk taking behavior, arrogance, hostility, etc.) and that was my main point.

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