A Glimmer of Change Review

This is the prequel to A Kind of Spark, which I read and reviewed earlier this year! You can read the review here.

A Glimmer of Change by Elle McNicoll follows Keedie, who is the older sister of Addie from the first book A Kind of Spark. This story takes place during Keedie's middle school (or secondary school as they call it in Britain) days, and Addie is 6 years old here.

Keedie, like Addie, is autistic, and has a history of getting bullied and no one standing up for her. After she defends her best friend Bonnie (who is also autistic) and gets in trouble for it, Keedie decides to start a little business of her own where she defends her classmates who are victims of bullying. She ends up helping a lot of people, but the school (well, mostly the principal/headmaster) doesn't like what she is doing because they claim they already have a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to bullying. Keedie thinks that claim is very flimsy, especially when they reward the top bullies (who happen to also be Keedie's twin sister Nina's friends, by the way) as "bullying monitors". Keedie also has become distant with Nina ever since she befriended those bullies (and one of them named Hugh even becomes Nina's boyfriend!). 

Keedie wants to use the money she makes from her anti-bullying mini business to help raise money to send Addie to an alternative school for neurodivergent people. She found out about the school from Bonnie's other friend, Angel, who attends the school.

While all that's going on, Keedie does research for a speech contest about Duncan Juniper, the founder of the town she lives in (who also happens to be Hugh's ancestor, a fact he won't stop bragging about), and finds out some not-so-nice things about him.

This book gave me all the feels, just like A Kind of Spark! There were so many relatable (in good and not so good ways) passages on the experience of being autistic. I'm autistic myself, in case you didn't know. So I gave it 5 stars!