Girls Like Us by Gail Giles (review)

Special Ed has been no picnic for classmates Biddy, who was born “moderately retarded,” and Quincy (short for Sequentia), who suffered a childhood brain injury at the hands of her mother’s boyfriend. Going out into the world doesn’t look like it’ll be any easier, but both girls are placed after graduation in the house of a local woman, Elizabeth, who needs home help as she deals with vertigo. There each girl begins to thrive in her own way, with warm-hearted Biddy blossoming under Elizabeth’s kind attention, and cynical Quincy relishing the respect she earns for her cooking skills and work ethic; they also grow closer, seeing past each other’s defenses. The narration alternates between Biddy and Quincy, with Biddy’s soft, eager credulity an effective complement to Quincy’s wry jadedness (“Leastwise,” says Quincy initially about living with Biddy, “if I live with her, I finally be the smartest person in the house”). The brief chapters allow plenty of time for thought on the part of the readers as they’re steeped into the daily challenges and thoughts of differently abled people. Ultimately, though, this tips too far into rescue fantasy territory, with everything in the girls’ world terrible until their move to Elizabeth’s allows them to suddenly blossom, and Quincy’s savage rape and mutilation merely one more thing for their new lives to redeem them from; a subplot about the baby Biddy gave up for adoption requires maximum contrivance at several steps. Intellectually disabled young people don’t receive a lot of attention in literature, though, especially when it comes to the difficult transition to adult living; readers with their own launch concerns may find this particularly rewarding.