Kay Kerr is a freelance writer, author and former community newspaper editor. Her debut novel is Please Don’t Hug Me and it is out now from Text Publishing.

Please Don’t Hug Me is the story of Erin. Erin is completing high school and has her sights set on schoolies as the unofficial finishing line. She’s juggling study, friends and keeping a job that will allow her to pay for the trip.

Erin is also on the autism spectrum but only a few people know. She’s got her best friend Dee, who is always ready with doughnuts to fix a bad day. Dee has been her rock for years but Dee is also talking about taking a gap year at the end of year twelve, so where does that leave their friendship?

Erin’s new friend Aggie seems to always know the right thing to say. Aggie seems to effortlessly make everything look easy and Erin doesn’t know if her life will ever look like that.

Please Don’t Hug Me is an epistolary novel, which is a story told through letters and correspondence. Erin is writing almost daily letters to her brother chronicling her life at school and yearning for his guidance navigating the social speed bumps of year twelve.

This narrative style creates an interesting tension precisely because we only hear Erin’s voice. Rudy does not write back and his silence creates an opening in which Erin must forge her own path.

The title Please Don’t Hug Me refers to Erin’s need to communicate that she doesn’t like hugs the way everyone else seems to. This is part of her sensory needs on the Autism Spectrum. Erin feels like she’s constantly out of sync with people around her but she also has unique and hard won insights into herself and her friends.

Erin’s perspectives open up the world of her school and her friends as she tries to figure out how her brain fits in with the neurotypical brains around her. Erin learns that people don’t want to hear about negative emotions and that society has different standards for her as a woman.

In shaping Erin’s letters Kay Kerr is opening an experience of the Autism Spectrum in the life of a young woman. She shows us how Erin’s struggles are both unique and also familiar. Erin knows she must work hard to figure out what is typical and expected and that even when she works that out, these things might not make her happy or even fit who she is.

Kay’s narrative is an important work for its representation of a character on the Autism Spectrum outside of the stereotypes that too often permeate popular depictions. It’s also an important work in its challenge of social norms around gender, race and cultural stereotypes that through Erin’s eyes are bonds that hold people back when they should be moving forward.

Kay Kerr’s Please Don’t Hug Me has a stunning pink and doughnut cover. It’s out through Text and I’d highly recommend checking it out.