54 pages • 1 hour read
Cassandra in Reverse
A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Authorial Context: Holly Smale and Representations of Neurodiversity
English writer Holly Smale worked as a fashion model beginning at the age of 15, then obtained a bachelor’s degree in literature and a master’s in Shakespeare studies. Her first published fiction was the Geek Girl series, which came out between 2013 and 2017. The middle grade/young adult series focuses on Harriet Manners, a self-described geek who reinvents herself after being recruited by a modeling agency, and consists of six novels and three spin-off stories. Her second series, The Valentines, focuses on three sisters who have fame and fortune, but lack what they really need. The three novels, Happy Girl Lucky (2019), Far From Perfect (2020), and Love Me Not (2021), each focus on one of the sisters. Cassandra in Reverse is Smale’s first novel for adults.
Smale has described always feeling different from her peers and having difficulty with social interactions. After a difficult breakup at age 39, she Googled various aspects of how she was feeling, leading her to suspect autism, which was soon followed by a clinical diagnosis (“Holly.” Room 5, Series 2 from BBC Radio 4, 2022). Smale has also reported having dyspraxia, a developmental coordination disorder, and synesthesia, particularly associating colors with emotions. Smale expressed relief regarding her diagnosis, as well as regret at the experiences of masking and feeling broken in advance of it. In interviews, she has discussed the idea that she wrote a neurodiverse character, Harriet Manners, for a decade, without knowing she was neurodiverse, but retroactively diagnosed the character with both autism and dyspraxia. She speaks about and advocates for representations of neurodiversity, particularly for women and young girls who are attempting to navigate their identities and ways of interacting with the world.
Neurosensory Context: Synesthesia
In addition to autism, an aspect of Cassie’s neurodiversity is perceiving emotions as colors, which is a type of synesthesia. Synesthesia is a sensory phenomenon characterized by sensory crossovers in which a person experiences multiple senses at the same time (“Synesthesia.” Cleveland Clinic, 2023). Experienced by an estimated 1-4% of the population, synesthesia occurs in at least 60 different forms. Synesthesia is often developmental but can also be acquired or drug induced. Potentially due to its association with increased connections between areas of the brain, people with autism spectrum disorder are approximately three times more likely to experience synesthesia as well. Types of synesthesia include grapheme-color (in which letters, numbers, or symbols are associated with specific colors), mirror touch (in which seeing another individual being touched incites a sensation on the subject’s own body), chromesthesia (seeing sounds as colors, which is sometimes associated with perfect pitch), and day-color synesthesia (the association between colors and days of the week).
One exceptional case of fivefold synesthesia was Solomon Shereshevsky, who experienced a reaction in every other sense each time one was activated (Johnson, Reed. “The Mystery of S., the Man With an Impossible Memory.” The New Yorker, 2017). This was reported to have been such an effective memorization tool that he could remember details about events that had occurred decades ago. Famous synesthetes include Vladimir Nabokov, Kanye West, and Nikola Tesla. Synesthesia is also used as a rhetorical device in literature, when one sense is described as another, often through metaphor or imagery.
Unlock all 54 pages of this Study GuidePlus, gain access to 8,800+ more expert-written Study Guides.
Including features: