insightful

very interesting. gives an understanding from a lay persons view into what is a complex range of behaviour.

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Heartwarming and empathetic in its own way

I found this book heartwarming and empathetic in its own way, many times I had to laugh thinking, how true maybe it would be a more straight forward world to live in with people if we were all a bit on the AS spectrum. As a psychotherapist working with AS I found it very insightful and helpful in my work as well as to recommend to some of my clients. Thank you John Elder!

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Great

Simply great. Thank you very much John for sharing your insights. It's nice to see how passionate you are about the subject and about helping others.

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Not for me

I expected something different. I always had troubles fitting in and felt different from others so I though that maybe this book could speak for me as well but is does not. At least I understood that I don’t have Asperger. Besides, I’m not particularly fond of this kind of writing, completely missing any kind of humor and irony.

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Apsie narrator is what you'd expect

Liked the story, enjoyed the ASD style tangents with too much detail on a meta level.

I think if this is your first book on autism you'd struggle.

That being said, loved the core of the book. I'm listening to it to help my mother struggling with the my nephews Autism. Seeing how special Autistic people blossom is not described enough to counter the narrative.

Also tone wise, if you don't like dry sarcastic humour; you'll find this book a bit flat.

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Excellent promotion of acceptance of differentness

A personal and intense promotion of the need for acceptance of differentness in people, ranging from 'normal' (typical) through eccentric, geeky, nerdy, weird, to full-on different world autism. The author reads with intensity and conviction (in an American accent this Brit soon got used to). As the grandfather of an teenage girl going through a bad patch I found the practical approaches thought-provoking in a "how can we use this?" way as she is a very different character from the author.
Thank you Mr Robison, I hope many more people in all walks of life read or listen to your book.

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Returned as found offensively elitist

As someone with a more modern diagnosis of ASC, and a significant level of disability only some of which being due to my undiagnosed ASC, I found this rhetoric offensively ableist and elitist. Perhaps this book is now just outdated and medical related titles should be removed from the catalogue when the science has moved on. However, I think, even if the classification of ASC had not changed since this book was published, the insistent significance placed on how important it is to a person’s identity to not be disabled would still be offensive and the author’s determination to segregate those whose diagnosis had been classified as “Asperger’s Syndrome” from the rest of the autistic spectrum would still feel elitist.
Unless you have a diagnosis of Asperger’s rather than autism/ASD/C and are happy to keep that term and have, like the author, had significant successes in your life already, I would advise you to skip this title.

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