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ClareR (5841 KP) rated The Paper Place in Books

Oct 30, 2021  
The Paper Place
The Paper Place
Miranda Cowley Heller | 2021 | Contemporary, Fiction & Poetry
10
10.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
I don’t think that any synopsis written by me could do justice to The Paper Palace. It couldn’t adequately describe the many layers to this frankly magnetic book (I mean this literally - I couldn’t put it down). Who knew that a book about a family’s summer home on Cape Cod could encompass so much more. A lot happens in the Paper Palace (the summer residence of Elle Bishop and her family), both in the past and present.

This is a book of childhood trauma, terrible parenting, young love, adultery, and a horrendous secret that both ties and separates Elle from her childhood friend and first love, Jonah.

I was completely absorbed in this story that spanned all of Elle’s life up to the present day, and even let us look into the life of her mother (not an ideal childhood, either). There is a deep-seated sadness to Elle’s character, and it’s not until later in the book that we learn the reasons why.

She has a deep love and affection for her children and her husband though, and there are some really touching, humorous moments between them. And this makes the decision she has to make at the end of the book, one of the most difficult in her life.

This will be high up in my favourite books of the year (Ok, this is becoming a sizeable list), and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it.
  
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Goddess in the Stacks (553 KP) rated Pretending to be Normal: Living with Asperger's Syndrome (Autism Spectrum Disorder) in Books

Jun 18, 2018  
Pretending to be Normal: Living with Asperger's Syndrome (Autism Spectrum Disorder)
Pretending to be Normal: Living with Asperger's Syndrome (Autism Spectrum Disorder)
Liane Holliday Willey, Tony Attwood | 2014 | Biography
7
7.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
First off, once again this is an older book that uses the term Asperger's throughout. The book was originally published in 1999, but a few more chapters were added and it was republished in 2014.

Honestly I found it a little hard to get through. Unlike Nerdy, Shy, and Socially Inappropriate, it was pretty much entirely memoir, and didn't really speak to the reader as if trying to have a conversation at all. It just told Willey's story. Which is fine, it just wasn't what I was expecting after reading Nerdy. The appendices are the only place that have tips and tricks for dealing with the neurotypical world as an autistic person, but there wasn't really anything new or unique there.

I also just don't think I like her writing style as much as I did the writing style in Nerdy, but that's such a personal thing. It's hard to make a recommendation based on that. Autistic people vary so widely in where their strengths and weaknesses are that it's difficult to say which books will be useful to which people, in general.

So - it's worth reading for yet another viewpoint on being autistic, and there are several parts on parenting as an autistic woman, so autistic parents might get more use out of the book than I did, as a childless spouse of an autistic man. But I personally did not like it nearly as much as Nerdy or The Journal of Best Practices.

You can find all my reviews (including for the two other books mentioned) at http://goddessinthestacks.wordpress.com