Book where a character or characters are allowed to be people for the first time

Whether it's because they were in an abusive household or because they were science experiments or something similar as long as they are out and around people who treat them right

Translation State by Ann Leckie fits in here somewhere. And I guess Murderbot All Systems Red.

A Close and Common Orbit is definitely that - and it's a big part of the Murderbot series, yeah.

>3 keristars: You mean Wayfarers. I happen to be re-reading A Closed and Common Orbit this week. It is full of characters that claim their humanity in various ways. And oddly, reading Frankenstein also, required reading for a class.

>4 2wonderY: oh, no, I guess i wasn't clear. That was two statements! AC&CO definitely fits, and also the whole Murderbot series fits too.

The other Wayfarers books don't really tackle the idea of "someone allowed to be a person", but they do consider what it means to be a person. That's a fairly common theme in sff, I think, or else it's one I gravitate to.

I feel certain I've read other books with the "allowed to be a person" theme, but I'm blanking on them. Narratives about leaving high-control authoritarian environments (cults, prisons) will often feature it.

Oh, I just thought of one: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - part of the growth arc for Huck is realizing that Jim is a person with his own wants, and treating him as such. And at the same time, Jim is experiencing autonomy for the first time.

Tenar in The Tombs of Atuan?
I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman, about a girl raised in very restrictive captivity.
Maybe How To Get A Girlfriend When You're a Terrifying Monster?
Dogs of War

This alien shore by C. S. Friedman (SF)
The enchanted april by Elizabeth von Arnim (litfic)
The greengage summer by Rumer Godden (YA)