... a testament to Brady’s quality of said character, her tenacity in the face of a world not yet ready to grapple with all she brings to it. Her memoir is not a journey of self-improvement: There is no concrete, happy ending outside of her eventual diagnosis.
Nobody is spared in this brutal, funny and heartbreaking memoir about growing up with undiagnosed autism ... [Brady] deftly weaves facts about autism into her life story, with footnotes from psychological studies. It is testament to her skill as a writer that these passages bolster rather than weigh down her narrative. The pace is brisk and her deadpan humour makes the darkest material hilariously funny.
While detailing a life as a perpetual outsider in an unsympathetic world could have allowed her to wallow in self-pity, Brady manages to plot a course between the drama of repeated brutal encounters and her inner thoughts with a mixture of excruciating honesty and dark humour ... I don’t know if Brady is a great writer in part because she is autistic, but her deeply personal account of bullying, stripping, homelessness and stand-up is shocking and incredibly moving – and it will make you laugh at subjects that you didn’t think possible.
Punchy ... [Brady] brings the same unsparing wit to a memoir that calls out the bulls--t in every culture she’s experienced ... Brady’s at her sharpest on autistic women and sex.
Although Brady hopes her memoir will "make things feel better for the next autistic or misfit girl," her anger is as evident as her compassion. An unflinching self-portrait.
