"Inside out" and "Are you alone on purpose"

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I learned that I have Asperger back in 1997. But I first became upset about ostracism in 2001. Back in good old 1997, Asperger was an intellectual curiosity, without any grudges or persecution complexes. What a peaceful time it was. I miss that.

So one of my favorite topics for high school projects was, guess what ... Asperger. And as I was browsing books on Asperger in a public library, I remember reading summaries of two books: "Inside out" and "Are you alone on purpose". I never actually got ahold of them, let alone read them. I am a slow reader, so I don't get to read most of the things I want to read. But, based off of those summaries, those are both fiction books about teenagers with Asperger. And even though I never read them, the idea of those books is really nice, as it brings that nostalgy.

This being said, did any of you read those books?

I realized they are outdated as they are both 1997. But I miss good old 90-s. The world wasn't so crazy back then. Yes, all this crazy liberal propaganda in schools was already starting. But seeing how nowdays it is 10 times worse, I still miss good old 90-s. Well, I don't want to go back to 80-s when I was a confused bullied kid, thats for sure. So late 90-s are preferred years of my life, regardless of anything else.

I would like to go back to the 1960s, and start all over again!

Nope....never even heard of those books.

Found the author's own page with commentary on that book,
https://nancywerlin.com/books/are-you-alone-on-purpose/
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Backstory

I think that all writers must feel a special kind of tenderness for their first novels. I certainly do for Are You Alone on Purpose? This novel began for me with a vision of a single pivotal scene: the one, early on in the book, in which Alison's mother “curses” Rabbi Roth for his decision not to enroll Alison's brother in Hebrew School. I had a vision of her screaming . . . and of Alison watching, listening, keeping her thoughts very private.

Of all the characters I've created, Alison Shandling is the closest on the surface to who and what I was at her age. But I made her smarter than me—both intellectually and emotionally. And I made her braver. She needs every bit of that courage, I think. With the plot of Are You Alone, I was trying quite deliberately to come up with a situation that would force Alison to confront her parents about her own needs, and that would also cause her to muse for the first time (but, I hope, not the last), on the place of God in the universe, given that the world contains so much pain and suffering.

Alison's enemy and sweetheart, Harry Roth, remains a bit of a puzzle to me. He is a whirling dervish of pain himself, and I am still both incredulous and amused that Alison finds him so compelling. But she does. I retain a bit of nervousness for her, for her fearlessness in this regard. But I also think that she knows exactly what she's doing. By the end, I trusted her instinct—and indeed, Harry's.

Finally, I think of both the Shandlings and the Roths as “functional families.” They're not perfect, but they try hard to cope with the difficulties in their lives, and they are all capable of change. And by the end of the book, they've managed, somehow, to communicate across the divides that separate them.

I believe that human beings are capable of understanding each other. I also believe it's hard, hard work. Everyday work. Heroic work.
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That's totally different from what I read back then. I read that it was about two Asperger teenagers, who were both loners, and bonded over it. Since you were describing "Are you alone on purpose" then could it be that the summary I remember pertained to "Inside out"? I sort of thought it was pertaining to "Are you alone on purpose" since I imagined one of the two teens asking the other one this question. But it was sole conjecture on my part, so maybe the origin of that title is totally different.

By the way the other book I just remembered that I ran into back then was "please don't say hello". Again, I didn't read it, other than the summary that it was about someone with Asperger. The conjecture that I came up with is maybe someone with Asperger eventually learned better social skills but they met someone whom they knew before they learned them, so they were told "please don't say hello" as in "please be the person I knew you as". But again thats just my theory. I have no idea as I have never read that book.