Book Review: Strong Female Character by Fern Brady

I find misery-memoirs like this difficult to read and disturbing to think about. Much like the tragic story of Mini and Me, reading this book made me feel like I was trapped in one of those nightmares where you try to scream a warning but no sound comes out.

Fern has been refreshingly honest about autism and how it affects women in particular. I can't think when I last read an autobiography with so many detailed footnotes and academic citations. Unlike most other autobiographies, this isn't the sort of memoir where the author comes out of every situation triumphant via the magic of l'esprit de l'escalier. Instead the anecdotes are grim and occasionally terrifying.

That's not to say there aren't moments of levity. But this isn't a comedy book, it is an exercise in painful revelation.

Which brings my to my frustration with the book. At every turn, Fern makes the wrong choice. Even when people explicitly offer to help her, she rejects them. She complains that allistics don't say what they mean - and then refuses to tell the people in her life that she's suffering. She claims to be driven by logic and reason and then makes the most illogical and harmful choices possible, while behaving completely unreasonably. It all becomes a little repetitive and - dare I say - paints her as a rather helpless and pathetic figure.

It is a good book; well-written, powerful, and grimly humorous - but it left me feeling deeply upset.