Author Lindsay Hameroff on ‘Rewrite the Stars’ & Autism Representation

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This isn’t the first time Lindsay Hameroff considered writing a character with autism. Hameroff has two children on the spectrum, and she was midway through her first book when her youngest was diagnosed. She thought about how she might include a side character with autism, mapping out where he might slot into the story, before realizing it wasn’t the right fit. “[My review group] told me, ‘You don’t want to take that opportunity and make it feel tokenized,’” she tells SheKnows.

So, Hameroff waited until the time was right — and now, she says she’s glad she did. In Rewrite the Stars, out July 7, Marissa Morgan is a divorced Hollywood starlet and mom to two kids, one of whom has autism. When Marissa’s famous ex-husband gets back together with his famous first wife (yes, the Ben-Jen-Jen love triangle was the inspiration), she decamps to the Pocono Mountains with her kids, craving an escape from the media circus.

The novel centers on the sweet romance between Marissa and Jesse, the childhood friend-turned-carpenter working on her house, but Marissa’s role as a mom is what sets everything in motion. As her ex reunites with his old flame and the paparazzi swarm Marissa’s house, “she is very stressed out about the impact it’s going to have on her children,” Hameroff explains. That anxiety is what prompts her to leave Hollywood for Pennsylvania. “What sets the novel into motion,” Hameroff says, “is a decision she makes for the welfare of her kids.”

It was Hameroff’s first time writing from the perspective of a mother, but she says it felt natural. Writing Levi, Marissa’s autistic child, though, came with some nerves. “The representation needs to feel right,” she remembers thinking. “It needs to feel authentic.”

Hameroff drew heavily from her own parenting experience. She also got inspiration from bestselling author Kennedy Ryan, whose novel This Could Be Us includes a character whose son has autism. Hameroff picked Ryan’s brain about writing a neurodivergent caregiver and “she sort of gave me the confidence to go for it,” Hameroff says. But Ryan also advised her that “people are very sensitive about certain aspects of autism,” Hameroff recalls. “So, I was very nervous about it.”

There are many aspects that feel true to life about Levi’s character — because they are. Hameroff’s son, for example, once went through a phase of only eating miniature Eggo waffles, a detail Hameroff borrowed for Levi. “Autism is a spectrum,” Hameroff notes. “It’s going to be different for everybody, but this is one snapshot of one lived experience.”

Other details are pulled from real life, too. When Marissa talks about Levi’s diagnosis with other parents, their responses echoed real conversations Hameroff had. “People meant well, but they said things that felt like a gut punch,” Hameroff recalled, like, “‘This is every parent’s nightmare. We’re so sorry this is happening to you.’”

The true-to-life details and emotions made Rewrite the Stars the most difficult book Hameroff has written. Some days, she says, working on the book felt like pulling teeth because it was so close to to her heart. The pressure of representation was also heavy. “Writing this book was very therapeutic,” Hameroff says, “but at the same time, knowing that I was writing about something that people were going to relate to — being a single mom, a divorced mom, and a caregiver for children and children on the spectrum — I felt a responsibility to really get it right.”

The early reviews are trending in that direction. “The feedback I’ve gotten about the representation and parenting has been, ‘I feel seen, and I relate to this,’” Hameroff says, “and that is exactly what my goal was for this book. I wanted to write a love letter to other moms.”