Autism Martyr Parent Book

REVIEW:

*I received an ARC from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

First, I need to say something, I’m appalled that any publisher would send an ARC out that was so poorly formatted. I read a LOT of ARCs and I work in publishing, and this one was by far the worst. Some pages were almost illegible, so much so that I often wondered if they’d paid a drunken baboon to type and format it up for them. It wasn’t just me either, I spoke to others reading it and they said the same thing.

I’m not going to share the blurb, as usual with these crappy woe-is-me-my-kid-has-autism stories, they sound so much better than they are.

This book is shit!

The author claims to be an expert on autism, but she can’t recognize autism enough to realize that she’s VERY LIKELY autistic herself. It comes through in EVERYTHING in this book.

She uses all the wrong language, that if she ACTUALLY knew anything about autistics, she’d know was the wrong language. Most of which OFFENDS US!

She’s MASSIVELY abusive to her autistic son in SO MANY WAYS. She’s abusive to the autistic community, painting us all as either savants or idiots or poor, disabled, unfortunate souls.

This is just as bad, if not worse than the Washington post article painted it is.

There is nothing redeemable about this book, and if I could give it a .01 star? I would.

I live-tweeted the book, and you can read it, if you have the stomach for it, here.

As for me? I loathe this author, I loathe the publisher and I loathe every single person who claims this book is good or praises it in any way.

NONE of them know what it’s like to be autistic, even if Whitney is? She’s so immured up Auti$m $peaks a$$ she has no idea her right from her left.

I’m offended that I even had the inkling of the thought that this book might be different.

She claims in the text that she didn’t want to write yet another ‘autism parent’ book.

She failed. BOY did she ever fail. The only thing she did better? Was to insult the very people she’s writing about and offer graphic proof that she’s an abuser.

No. NO. NO!

Content and trigger warnings on MASSIVE physical abuse, mental abuse, emotional abuse and horrible selfishness.

I want this tradition of these ‘autism martyr parent’ books to DIE.

I want publishing to do better by their autistic readers. There are SO MANY OF US!

And while I hate to excoriate a new author, this is not the kind of book one should share. She’d actually be a talented author if she turned to fiction, or even learned just a LITTLE from actual autistic adults, she has voice, but she should NOT be writing about this.