100 Books Like The Ethical Slut

The book is a nice combination between being a popular book and still including a lot of interesting, valid scientific data, which make us reconsider what we think we knew about the evolution of human sexuality, and our own daily lives.

Some reviews have suggested it is mostly a popular, superficial book, but actually, it does include very detailed studies, both ethnographic - about humans living in various types of societies - and anthropological - including about the lifestyle of chimpanzees and bonobos. As a first read on the evolution of human sexuality, I do think it is a good start.

The Spoon Knife anthology series is the seminal place to find short neuroqueer fiction: fiction that explores what neurodivergent minds have to offer, how we see the world, and what our lives can be like, usually via speculative or sci-fi elements.

Spoon Knife 2: Test Chamber is loosely themed on the idea of the “test chamber,” a space in which one’s every move, choice, and outcome is scrutinized, and its 36 essays, poems, and short stories all approach this idea from different directions.

Several of its essays deal directly with neurodivergent and queer experience without the interpretive lens of science fiction and can help readers understand people like us and people like us to feel seen and comprehended.

Neurodivergent people are notoriously averse to small talk, but where to go from there?

Intellectual Foreplay provides an extensive collection of conversation topics and questions one can use to get to know someone better, whether you’re already close or just getting started.

In between, this book provides a treatment of how this sort of conversation works and, crucially, actions that can be taken in response to the answers one receives.

It’s an interesting book, even if it’s not particularly interesting to read straight through. Reference volumes often aren’t, so this is not a point against it.

Neurodivergence, queerness, and the power of spreading love far and wide will find few more apt combinations than in Kai Cheng Thom’s magical-realist faux-memoir, Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars.

This surreal, poignant piece of fiction hits so many notes that resonate for people like us that it is difficult to list them all.

In its violent and sometimes confusing splendor, one finds a story of someone finding the people who will love her through the pain of a world that neither understands nor respects our difference, and in the end, what more could we want than that?

Tom is the hero we need today. I love characters who know who they are and don’t care what others think of them. And I value ‘fun’ as a goal.

Tom just wants to fool around and yawns at his aunt’s disapproval. The contests between Tom and his aunt’s champion, Captain Najork, are the best descriptions of games I’ve ever read, especially when you consider that the games themselves are invented out of whole cloth and the words applied seemingly at random. 

One of the things I love most about this book is how much Georgia learns about herself by raising an autistic daughter.

I have found the same to be true as my wife and I are raising an autistic son. The more I learn about him, the more I learn about myself. It is a wonderful experience to see myself mirrored in a character. Though Georgia and Lauren face many obstacles, Georgia’s daughter, Hannah, keeps pulling them back together.

I am a sucker for a cute kid who knows more about what the grownups in their lives need than they do. 

I absolutely love being a mother – but becoming a mum wasn’t the simple experience I thought it would be. I suffered from post-natal depression after the birth of both of my daughters and it was a shock for me to discover that motherhood wasn’t as easy and natural as I’d imagined. That’s why I loved reading Grace Under Pressure – it perfectly captures the ups and downs of motherhood and the terrifying loneliness, while simultaneously incorporating humour, heart, and comradery between women.

This book is for every twentysomething out there with a learning difference. After years of struggling in school, maybe by now you’re feeling a bit beat up and worn down. This book will help you shake it off with a good laugh and a good cry and remind you that adult life and work don't have to be like the classroom. I laughed out loud with every page, except for the ones that broke my heart.

I was surprised to see this on a list of neurodiverse books because I hadn’t remembered that Hannah, the professional cuddler has aphantasia which means she cannot form pictures in her head.

This story is an opposites attract where the characters have to live together for ninety-two days if they are to inherit a building. Hannah’s warmth is the polar opposite of Winter’s reserved coldness which makes living together difficult. However, the more Winter learns about how Hannah thinks and functions, the more she thaws.

I loved that each character helped the other step beyond her comfort zone. 

I found this book while I was researching for my own book and have been recommending it regularly to families ever since. It promotes a positive view of neurodiversity without being ‘PollyAnna-ish’–I would call it positive realism.

It was written over thirteen years ago now, so not all the language will be perfect for everybody by today’s standards. However, the concepts are still very current, and they are expressed sensitively. Clinical conditions such as autism, ADHD, and dyslexia are described in a very accessible way, demonstrating how symptoms are on a continuum, and many of us can relate to at least some features of most of the conditions.

Chapters on depression and anxiety are included, and while these arguably fall under mental health rather than neurodiversity, I was really glad of their inclusion in this book, as the overlaps between mental health conditions and neurodiversity are many, and clinical distinctions… show more.