Guest Post by Emma Noyes
Emma Noyes is the author of Guy’s Girl, The Sunken City series and the forthcoming How to Hide in Plain Sight. She is a prolific TikTokker with over 500K followers where she shares about her books as well as her own personal journey with OCD. Her books focus on neurodivergent characters falling in love in the hopes that this widely embraced genre will bring more awareness and representation to the literary world.
I’ve been afraid almost my whole life. At seven, whenever my parents left the house, I would call them every fifteen to check that they were still alive. At ten, I would obsessively review and re-review every conversation I had with friends that day, checking for hints that they didn’t like me anymore. At thirteen, I began compulsively checking my body for signs that I was actually attracted to girls, even though I had only ever felt attracted to boys. It took until sixteen for me to finally get diagnosed with both Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), but for long before then, my head was a loud, uncomfortable place to live.
Mental illness sucks. There’s no better way to say it. It’s confusing, and scary, and—in my experience—relentless. One day, the worries arrived, and they never really left. Receiving my diagnoses was a small comfort, but it did nothing to alleviate the non-stop worrying in my head. There were few things that did.
My very favorite? Books.
I have always been an avid reader. I read across genres—fantasy, sci fi, women’s fiction, literary fiction, romance—but all of my favorite books have at least one thing in common: they all involve a love story with a happy ending. They were the perfect escape from my decidedly unhappy mind. There was just one issue: none of the narrators in these books had minds like mine.
Novels occupy a very specific place in our culture. They are the bridge between entertainment and education. Did writing about OCD and GAD exist when I was a kid? Absolutely—in scientific journals, on online forums about psychology, in literary fiction or non-fiction. Was I, as a ten-year-old child, likely to read any of those resources? Absolutely not. But I was reading romance novels—and a lot of them.
Unfortunately, the heroines in all my favorite books were almost always “neurotypical,” which meant that I couldn’t see myself in them. Instead, I saw better, more “correct” versions of myself—a literary upbringing that, ultimately, would lead me to believe that messed-up girls like me don’t deserve a happily ever after.
My teenage self desperately needed a love story with a character that thought like I did. I needed the chance to see that everyone, no matter how chaotic their mind, deserves to find their Prince (or Princess) Charming.
Novels are not only entertaining and educational; they are also immersive. They allow us to step into the shoes of another character for a time. To think how they think. We sympathize with the main character. We root for them. What better way to foster empathy and understanding than with a novel?
That is why representation is so important in publishing. Representation of not just different psychologies, but different everything—race, class, gender, religion, body size, neuropsychology… you name it. If children only see thin, white, cis-gendered, heterosexual, neurotypical characters as the heroes of their popular novels, then they will grow up believing that thin, white, cis-gendered, heterosexual, neurotypical people are the only ones who can be heroes. That they are the only type of people who deserve a happy ending.
Reading books was my escape growing up, and writing them has become my escape as an adult. When I went to write my very first, Guy’s Girl, I knew that I wanted to write a story with a neurodivergent main character. In this book’s case: Ginny Murphy, a young woman who develops anorexia and bulimia to cope with her anxiety. And I knew I wanted this book to be a commercial romance novel—not a piece of literary fiction, which is the only place I’d seen authentic portrayals of eating disorders before—because I wanted the story’s message of acceptance and understanding to reach as wide of an audience as possible.
Of all possible genres of commercial fiction, I decided that I wanted to write Ginny Murphy’s story as a romance. Why? Well, romance novels—my favorite ones, anyway—are not just about falling in love with another person. They are about falling in love with yourself, too. Learning to let love in, because you deserve to be loved. Learning to accept who you are, cracks and bruises and all.
I began my journey with Ginny’s story, and I’m continuing it with the tale of Eliot Beck, a young woman with OCD. Specifically, the type of OCD that I have, which is one not often depicted in popular media. An OCD of whirling thoughts and internal self-torture, no hand washing or touching doorknobs or checking stoves involved. Yet again, I wrote a story of learning to accept who you are—with the help of the person with whom you’re destined to fall in love. Someone who loves you fully, richly. Unconditionally.
It is so crucial that we give the world stories of neurodivergent people falling in love. That we demonstrate that, just because your brain doesn’t do exactly what you wish it would do, just because your mind makes you feel different or “other,” does not mean that you don’t deserve love. Because you do. We all do. We all deserve that beautiful, unconditional love of storybooks. We all deserve to hope.
That is why I write love stories with neurodivergent leads. And that is why I will continue to write them, over and over and over if necessary, until every terrified little girl like me has the chance to see themselves reflected back on the page.
How to Hide in Plain Sight by Emma Noyes
Eliot has spent years building up a wall and separating herself from her family trying to reign in the struggles her OCD has presented. She loves her big family, but fears being around them will reveal something that will bring the whole facade down. Still, she hopes she can survive a four-day wedding. When Manuel, her childhood love appears, she must contend with her long buried feelings.
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