Name: Flavia Louise's review of Look Me in the Eye by John Elder Robison
Item: Look Me in the Eye
Rating: 4
Author: Flavia Louise

John Elder Robison

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “As sweet and funny and sad and true and heartfelt a memoir as one could find.” —from the foreword by Augusten Burroughs Ever since he was young, John Robison longed to connect with other people, but by the time he was a teenager, his odd habits—an inclination to blurt out non sequiturs, avoid eye contact, dismantle radios, and dig five-foot holes (and stick his younger brother, Augusten Burroughs, in them)—had earned him the label “social deviant.” It was not until he was forty that he was diagnosed with a form of autism called Asperger’s syndrome. That understanding transformed the way he saw himself—and the world. A born storyteller, Robison has written a moving, darkly funny memoir about a life that has taken him from developing exploding guitars for KISS to building a family of his own. It’s a strange, sly, indelible account—sometimes alien yet always deeply human.

My Life with Asperger's

Look Me in the Eye

Johanna Kenrick

Flavia Louise

This book basically took me forever to read. I got it following someone's recommendation who's opinion I trusted. But due to a very special situation didn't wanna think about. When I started the Booktube-A-Thon yesterday it was the only book that fitted the challenge involving the same first letter in the last name as yourself. I was about 40% done with it already but figured I'd take it in anyways and so I did. The book is extremely interesting and in my opinion an easy introduction into Asperger's while also being a good book if you know more about the Syndrome. It really is a well written, entertaining and truly remarkable book.

ADDITION: Asperger's is a form of Autism and for that reason has a spectrum, if you want to learn about all different forms on that spectrum you need more than this book. There are people diagnosed with Asperger's that have more or different symptoms and can interact a lot worse with the "mainstream population" than the author but that should in no way make this book less valid or valuable to the reader.

Tracey O’Rourke

I was really very disappointed in this book. I was expecting more insight into his Asperger's, more clever, but got a fairly limited read of his adventures and activities, with not much insight at all, except briefly here or there. It wasn't even really fun to read adventures. I was hoping for more.

Casie Blevins

I kind of hated and loved this book at the same time. It's brutally honest. It's a journey. It's both insightful and blind. It shows a man's growth over a lifetime, his social struggles and social triumphs. It shows a lack of emotionality, startling in its coldness. It shows a resistance to change and change regardless, a slow acceptance of difference. I loved that he loves to be petted. I hated that he called his parents slave and stupid. It was painful to read and joyful, too.
 I guess that's the best kind of book, one that alters you somehow, whether you wanted that or not.

The author describes life growing up different in an odd family, his unusual talents, his struggle to live a "normal" life, his diagnosis at the age of forty with Asperger's syndrome, and the dramatic changes that have occurred since that diagnosis.

Olivera Filipas

Look Me in the Eye" is the moving, darkly funny story of growing up with Aspergers at a time when the diagnosis simply didnt exist. A born storyteller, Robison takes readers inside the head of a boy who teachers and other adults regarded as defective. Its a strange, sly, indelible account; sometimes alien yet always deeply human.

Johanna Kenrick &
Look Me in the Eye by John Elder Robison

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Johanna Kenrick &Look Me in the Eye by John Elder Robison

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Look Me in the Eye by John Elder Robison