This is a truly original novel, a war cry for you to be you and for me to be me. I loved it’ – Laura Jane Williams Before reading this I really hoped this book would center Cassandra. I’ve read so many (romance) books featuring autistic characters at this point, where there’s always a midway point where the character either gets diagnosed or explains to others around her that she’s autistic. That this book set out with a very obviously autistic person (special interest, struggles with sensory input, gets meltdowns, communicates differently, takes things literally, struggles with certain foods) made me really happy initially, because I thought the focus would be about her living her live as an autistic woman. It would’ve been such a nice change from the other stories I’ve read so far! I thought we’d read about how she finds a job which suits her, about how she finds a friend who loves Greek myths just as much as she does, and generally speaking gets to live her best life. Witty, touching and totally absorbing. Cassandra is a funny and sharply-observed character who I loved spending time with." - Graeme Simsion if i could choose, i’d roll around in mud and laugh easily and be covered in puppies and take the world in my stride, but i can’t —i have never been able to— and the judgment i feel about that has always been for me.” Cassandra Penelope Dankworth is not having a good day when she gets to work only to find the cherry on the rotten cake of the day is she’s being fired. Cassie doesn’t know what to think after starting the day off with a break up before it all spiraled out of control and being a creature of habit this is all just too much for her to handle.

i’ve never been in love. not really. not fully. and i’m really scared that i’m not capable of it, not built for it, not destined for it —that i don’t know what true love means, or feels like, and i never will— which means that i am, actually, broken.” 🥹🥹 The mystery woman, Diana, set the story on a whole new course that I was not expecting. After Cassandra's reconciliation with her, the storyline with Will is completely altered. At first, I was extremely annoyed. After all, wasn't this book partially a romance? Now it wasn't feeling like one so much. Then the more I thought about it, I came to the conclusion that maybe there was a reason she and Will keep having issues in every alternate reality she creates. As sweet as he is, perhaps they really are too different, and she was wrong about fate. She can keep altering it, but in the end, things will eventually realign in the way they were meant to go. Different journey, same results. So I adjusted my thinking about her new projected ending. This is all about her deciding not to time travel anymore because she finally accepts herself for who she is, differences and all. Except...she starts making mistakes again with Diana, time traveling again to fix it (after declaring that she won't anymore), and then deciding to contradict everything she claimed to have learned and start COMPLETELY over again. Smale [] combines well-developed characters with laugh-out-loud humor….Readers will be drawn into Cassie’s life and won’t want to leave. This neurodiverse tale is ripe for discussion.” —BOOKLIST, Starred Review Before the industrial revolution, most of the potential disasters faced by human societies were biological and ecological (plagues and famines). Then technological disasters seemed uppermost in the mind of the public (nuclear war); but now we have a combination of the two. The constant prediction of disaster is what gives the novel its title, the Cassandra complex being what is suffered by those who predict disaster but are ignored, a prime example being those concerned with the problems of overpopulation. The Cassandra metaphor (variously labeled the Cassandra " syndrome", " complex", " phenomenon", " predicament", " dilemma", " curse") relates to a person whose valid warnings or concerns are disbelieved by others.

This is a science fiction novel of enormous scope, filled with wonders. Set earlier in the same "future history" as Inherit the Earth, Architects of Emortality, and The Fountains of Youth, The Cassandra Complex is the independent story of events crucial to the creation of the universe in which the others take place. It is the twenty-first century, a world of rapid change and biotech threats and promises. World War Three, the biotech war, is on the horizon and the world as we know it is going to end. The fateful question is, who is going to choose the kind of future that will follow, and who gets to live in this new world to come? Aside from the storyline about her relationship and her getting her diagnosis, there’s a lot more this book covers.

A brilliantly clever, twisty story that dazzles with its wit whilst touching our hearts' SARAH HAYWOOD What I loved most was the mysterious detour it leads Cassandra on—one with a surprising twist and a much bigger purpose than she intended. The utterly heartfelt, vulnerable moments along the way made my heart so full. and okay, all these romances went pretty badly wrong, but that’s not really the point i’m trying to make.The idea of time travelling seems that it would be stressful, trying to remember what you had said or done, so as not to confuse the others around you. It did make for some amusing and embarrassing moments though. In 1963, psychoanalyst Melanie Klein provided an interpretation of Cassandra as representing the human moral conscience whose main task is to issue warnings. Cassandra as moral conscience, "predicts ill to come and warns that punishment will follow and grief arise." [3] Cassandra's need to point out moral infringements and subsequent social consequences is driven by what Klein calls "the destructive influences of the cruel super-ego," which is represented in the Greek myth by the god Apollo, Cassandra's overlord and persecutor. [4] Klein's use of the metaphor centers on the moral nature of certain predictions, which tends to evoke in others "a refusal to believe what at the same time they know to be true, and expresses the universal tendency toward denial, [with] denial being a potent defence against persecutory anxiety and guilt." [3] Laurie Layton Schapira [ edit ] About Time meets The Rosie Project: A unique, heartwarming and life-affirming novel about one woman's unlikely journey through love, again and again... Cassie has never really fitted in. She remembers everything. Understands nothing. And consistently says the wrong thing. a b Laurie Layton Schapira, The Cassandra Complex: Living With Disbelief: A Modern Perspective on Hysteria p.65 (1988)