ARC Review: Tilly in Technicolor by Mazey Eddings
Mazey Eddings (A Brush With Love*) makes a colorful splash with her YA debut, Tilly in Technicolor, a YA romance about two neurodiverse teens finding each other and learning to navigate a world not built for their brains.
Tilly in Technicolor by Mazey Eddings
(⭐⭐⭐⭐)
Bookshop* | Goodreads | StoryGraph
*I may receive a small commission at no extra cost to you
Publication Date: 8/15/23
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press - Wednesday Books
Genre: Young Adult Contemporary Romance
Pages: 320
Tropes: Opposites Attracts, Forced Proximity, Found Family
Other Details: ADHD & Autism representation, LGBTQIA+ representation
Tilly Twomley has just graduated high school and is off to spend the summer interning at her Ivy League sister’s new start-up. Her controlling mother hopes the trip will give Tilly some direction as to what college and career she wants. But what her mother simply can’t (or won’t) understand is that with Tilly’s ADHD, her brain works differently, and she simply wants different things than the carefully laid plan before her.
Oliver “Ollie” Clark knows exactly what he wants and he has an exact roadmap to get there. He’s starting a prestigious design program in the fall and working a summer internship in the meantime. When it comes to color, Oliver is an expert on every hue but when it comes to people, he oftentime finds himself lost. While he has close and supportive friends and family, his autism sometimes makes it difficult to form outside relationships.
So when Tilly and Ollie figuratively and literally collide on an international flight, they’ll both have to learn how to navigate the new path life has set them on.
Thank you to Netgalley, St. Martin’s Press, and Wednesday Books for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
For her first Young Adult novel, Mazey Eddings has an absolute gem with Tilly in Technicolor. It’s funny and sweet and has a cast of characters I want to gather up and keep in my pocket for safekeeping. It’s a love story for and about neurodivergent people that’s filled with joy, acceptance, empathy, and understanding.
From the very first page, I knew I was going to love this book. There is an ease to Eddings’s writing that makes reading her books feel like chatting with a friend. We start in Tilly’s POV, and if you’ve ever been inside a teenage girl’s head (especially one with ADHD) then that’s exactly what it feels like. Every time a chapter is in Tilly’s voice, it reads almost like a stream of consciousness or a diary entry.
Oliver’s POV, on the other hand, is more structured and straight to the point which mirrors Oliver’s autism. I appreciate how aspects of his autism are portrayed with care and authenticity. He has feelings he often can’t name, his sister teaches him social cues, and there’s even discussion of masking, stimming, and infodumping. One of my favorite things is how frequently Oliver is describing a feeling, the feeling of being in love, yet he doesn’t have the context to know that’s what he’s feeling. Seeing him grow and learn that’s what love is was so satisfying to experience with him on his journey.
Tilly’s journey was equally satisfying. She goes from extreme loneliness from not feeling seen and always having to dim her shine to fit in, to finding a chosen family who sees and accepts her for who she is. They not only appreciate her radiance, but they encourage it. I mean, Oliver describes being around her “like discovering a new color of the rainbow every single day.” How nauseously cute is that?
I also gotta give Eddings props for taking one of my least favorite tropes (miscommunication) and really making it work. A lot of times the miscommunication trope drives me up the wall because it’s entirely avoidable in many of the adult novels I read. Adults should know better. Adults should know how to communicate which makes most romance novel conflicts completely avoidable. But with a young adult novel–especially a young adult novel about two neurodiverse teens–it works. Tilly and Oliver have every reason to miscommunicate. Their brains work differently and they’re still learning how to communicate with each other.
*SPOILERS AHEAD*
When Oliver returns to Tilly, he acknowledges he should have reacted differently or said anything at all when she first tells him about her job in Paris. She breaks up with him because she didn’t give him time to react which she admits she should have known better. They’re both incredibly forgiving because they know despite their differences, they have a lot in common, and they belong together.
While Tilly and Oliver’s relationship has a satisfying end to their arc, the ending in general felt a little rushed. The reconciliation between Tilly and her mother didn’t feel like her mother earned Tilly’s forgiveness. They have one conversation and years of being treated poorly is supposedly all is well. There’s no action, no showing that her mother is actually deserving of this forgiveness. It’s a little off-putting, especially when compared to how well done the reconciliation between Tilly and her sister which was much more thorough and had more give and take between the sisters.
Overall, Tilly in Technicolor delivers a colorful, charming coming of age romance that centers and celebrates neurodiversity. It’s been a great year for Young Adult novels, and Mazey Edding’s YA debut easily takes its place among the best.
Tilly in Technicolor by Mazey Eddings (⭐⭐⭐⭐)
Bookshop* | Goodreads | StoryGraph
*I may receive a small commission at no extra cost to you
