Life Hacks For a Little Alien by new to me author A. Franklin. I tried getting into this book, it was just too confusing. Couldn't follow the author's logic.
Blurb: Before she thinks of herself as Little Alien, our narrator is only a lonely little girl living in southeast England, who doesn’t understand the world the way other children seem to. So when a late-night TV special introduces her to the mysterious Voynich Manuscript—an ancient tome written in an indecipherable language—Little Alien experiences something she hasn’t hope. Could there be others like her, who also feel like they’re from another planet?

Convinced the Voynich Manuscript holds the answers she needs, Little Alien and her best (and only) friend Bobby decide they must find this strange book. Where that decision leads them will change everything.

Narrated by an unexpected guide who has arrived to offer Little Alien the advice she’ll need to find her way, Life Hacks for a Little Alien explores a less-usual experience of the world, inviting us into the head of a child who doesn’t read her surroundings the way we might assume. Ringing with voice, humor, and heart, Alice Franklin will have you swinging from stitches to tears on the uneven path to finding a life that fits, even when you yourself do not.

Having worked with many different students, this book made the difficulties of non-typical learners not just visible, it tried to give a feeling of what it must be like not to be able to conform. The author does a good job showing the challenges and the original ways of thinking of such children and shows that there is often an unexpected hidden potential to be discovered. Life is never simple for them and they need to overcome their own anxieties as well as the expectations other people have, and those are more often than not very unclear or unrealistic. Insightfully written, great if you want to get a better understanding of atypical thinking and behaviour.

I have mixed feelings about the novel as it is a very extraordinary book from a number of aspects. First of all the second person narration is quite uncommon, which makes a really interesting storytelling.
The main protagonist is also an unusual heroine. She is a neurodivergent child. She thinks herself an alien (from hence the title of the book) because she feels that she is somehow different from the other people, and thinks it is because she is from a different civilization.
The story is about how the little alien grows up and finds her place in life where she fits in (although the Epilogue turns the things upside down a bit...)
It is a fascinating story, tender and loving. But I found the linguistic musings sometimes too lengthy, although being a teacher of English Literature and Language I was able to follow them. I wonder what a "civilian" can make out of them.
Life Hacks For a Little Alien is an unusual novel which requires time to digest it after you have read it. I can recommend it to anyone who loves books with gravity.

A quirky little read. Enjoyed the second person narration, not something you come across very often and I think it worked really well in this context. Interesting view on what it is to be different and done with compassion too.