Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger's

Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger's was written by John Elder Robison and was published in 2007. I chose to read this book because I have an interest in a possible career in Special Education. I thought this book would allow a glimpse of what life is like for those on the Autism spectrum. I ended up being very happy with my choice. The book allowed me to view the world from an Aspergian perspective, as well as someone with a complicated family life. Look Me in the Eye is about John's life growing up. He had strange behaviors that people noticed about him, and that he noticed too while growing up. He never made eye contact with people, and he didnt understand how to make friends. Nobody understood him and he was considered strange by everyone. It also didn’t help that his mother had mental disorders and frequented the mental hospital, while his father was an abusive alcoholic. As John continued to grow, things became harder for him, his home life continued to deteriorate and he had trouble in school, and eventually dropped out. As John became more interested in the music business, he found himself with jobs for big music groups like KISS. Through his life and many jobs he develops an understanding of what is socially acceptable. He ends up getting married twice and having a family. By the end of the story, he finds out he has Asperger’s. He was happy to know he is not the only person out there like this. He finally felt acceptance. I do recommend this book especially to people who have an interest in understanding people with disorders, and people who grow up in a bad environment. John had a unique writing style. He used the showing instead of telling model a lot. He showed us other's reactions to how he acted by using dialogue. When he smiled after hearing someone died he showed us the reaction he got. “I smiled at her words. She turned to me with a shocked expression on her face. “What! Do you think thats funny?” I felt embarrassed and humiliated” (Robison 29). He makes sure the reader knows how he feels by showing his responses. John also used a lot of descriptions. When describing his therapist, Dr. Finch, he stated, “He was old and chubby, with white hair and a vaguely foreign accent” (Robison 56). He allows the readers to create an image of all the characters. His writing style captures the reader's attention for the entire book. Anyone who enjoys detailed stories will enjoy Robison’s writing style. The book allows you to relate to John’s life. He puts you in a position to see things from his perspective. He brings you through all the memorable moments of his life, and allows the reader to empathize for him. The author had an impact on what characters you like and dislike. For example, reading the book it’s impossible to like his father because of the picture painted of him. “As my parents fought more, my father got meaner. Especially at night. He was nastiest then because he’d started drinking wine. He’d pick me up and shake me. I thought my head might come off” (Robison 15). Since John introduces his father as a mean person early in the book, the reader grows to dislike him more as the story continues. The plot is sequenced in chronologically. It helped keep the events in order, and allows for the reader to keep up with what was happening. The book held my attention most of the time. At times the book slowed down , but it would pick up quickly. The book took a turn when John got in trouble with the law. “The natives who raided us turned out to be the island's entire police force” (Robison 118). As soon as this twist took place, it immediately grabs your attention. The whole book is a learning experience. It allows you to learn what people on the Autism spectrum think of the world, and it allows you to see what it’s like to be considered a deviant person and an outcast. It lets you see how detrimental the way people with Asperger’s are treated as children impact them for the rest of their lives. Asperger's was not as well known when John was a child as it is now, which allows you to see a different time period. I really enjoyed learning about all of this while reading the book. John Elder had a hard life and it’s great that he was able to write a book about it. It allows the rest of the world to see the life he lived growing up and for him to finally feel understood. The book gave him a chance to explain everything the people around him simply did not understand. I would recommend this book to everyone. I believe people with Asperger’s may enjoy this book too because it makes them feel like they aren't alone.

I've been interested in Asperger's Syndrome for more than 15 years, ever since articles about the syndrome first started to appear in popular newspapers and magazines. It was obvious to me from the very beginning that the academic world in which I worked had an unusually high number of these brilliant, but decidedly weird, personalities. I wanted to know more about these colleagues that seemed to think and act so differently from the norm. When autobiographies by Aspergians started to appear in publication, I snapped them up and read them eagerly. One of the very first was Temple Grandin's " Thinking In Pictures ." She became widely known when the famous neurologist and author, Oliver Sacks, wrote about her in his bestselling book " An Anthropologist On Mars ." I recommend both of these books highly. Autobiographies are great, but there is nothing like the power of fiction to get a reader deeply inside the mind of another human being! There are two outstanding works of fiction that I am familiar with that are told from the perspective of someone on the high end of the autism spectrum: " The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time " by Mark Haddon, and " The Speed of Dark " by Elizabeth Moon. I also recommend both of these books highly. A few weeks ago, I stopped to gaze on the many titles that Amazon was recommending to me, based on the titles I've purchased from them or reviewed on their site. I was delighted to see there was a new Aspergian autobiography on the market: John Elder Robison's " Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger's ." I ordered it immediately. Yesterday, I picked up the book after breakfast and was surprised to find that I had completely finished it by later that same afternoon. What a delightful, and often humorous, book this was! The book is mainly a collection of stories from the Robison's unusual life. The writing is surprisingly fresh, honest, and emotionally open. The stories are full of amazingly dysfunctional parents, geeky pranks, and weird happenings. Though them, and many inward-looking passages found throughout the book, Robison gives us keen insight into the mind and thinking processes of a high-functioning person with Asperger's Syndrome, aptly named by Robison throughout this work as Aspergians. Other reviewers have covered well what is included in these stories and how Robison's life and this book relates to his younger brother's bestselling book and major motion picture " Running With Scissors ," so I won't cover those aspects here. What I do want to add that as is wholly new, is that this book is a great companion-piece to " The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science " by Norman Doidge. This absolutely fascinating new book gives an easily readable, enjoyable, and thought-provoking nonprofessional overview of the new science of neuroplasticity--the brain's ability to reorganize itself by forming new neural connections over the life span. This is what Robison was able to do--completely by himself, without professional intervention. As you read this book, you'll be able to see how Robison was able to rewire his brain, and eventually to make himself more normal. Robison, the adult accomplished 40-year-old author who writes this book, no longer possesses the same brain wiring problems that his younger self had to deal with. That is why this book can be told with such a high degree of emotional openness and understanding. Toward the end of the book, Robison talks with great understanding briefly about the new science of neuroplasticity and how he is confident that he has been able to slowly rewire his brain over the last two decades of his life. This is what is wonderful about this book. For me, it was not so much a good book about Aspergians, but it was a fascinating tale about an Aspergian who was able to rewire his brain successfully to respond more normally to life. If this aspect of Robison's autobiography interests you, then by all means, read " The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science ." There you will find numerous real-life stories about people, with a wide range of disabilities, who were able to achieve successfully what seemed--until only very recently--an impossible task: changing their brains and conquering their disabilities. Norman Doidge's neuroplasticity book gets my unqualified highest recommendation. It will change the way you look at the world and you will be able to understand, on an easy scientific level, what Robison was able to do to his Aspergian brain over the last two decades. So, what do I feel about Robison's book in general? Well, it was easy and pleasant to read and well worth the time and effort. There are perhaps better books that take you deeper into the mind of an Aspergian. But no book out there shows you a better real-life example of the brain's ability to reorganize itself by forming new neural connections over the life span. I'd give it three stars for the storytelling, three stars for the writing, three stars for the insight it brings to bear on Asperger's Syndrome, but four stars on what it brings to bear on the new science of neuroplasticity, and for me, that last one out weighs all the rest.

This autobiography was a very pleasant surprise. Bought on a whim on kindle for me to learn more of one's perceptions and experiences who is diagnosed with this "condition". It details the author's early years, including his difficulties socialising and the unique way he viewed the world then and now. Robison elaborates on his dysfunctional family life-- which we know in detail already from Augustin Burrough's compelling autobiography "Running with scissors", Robison is Burroughs' elder brother. Unlike Burroughs, Robison escaped the clutches of his mother's descent into psychosis and his father's violence and alcoholism. Robison was forced to grow up suddenly as he left school and home at the age of 16 years. He became an audio-engineer, initially for bands such as Fat and then Pink Floyd, and subsequently special effects designer for bands such as Kiss. He describes in razor sharp detail the life of being on the road with musicians and the surreal lifestyle, and being accepted as being another creative misfit. Financial difficulties forced him out of this strange frenetic lifestyle into more mundane jobs as a engineer- all of this attained without the benefit of conventional schooling. He earned accolades for his creativity designing computer games and the like, but as he became more successful and promotions ensued, he was steered into administrative roles, which relied on interpersonal skills which he was sadly lacking. Eventually after a broken marriage and the birth of his son, he finally achieved success through forming his own prestige vehicles car repair service. What I liked about this book was the observations he makes about his own behavioural responses to situations, such as detailing his reactions to being told that someone was killed in an accident. Unlike "neuro-typical" people who have learnt regular social conventions from a young age, and respond to such announcements with expressions of sorrow, Robison reacts with inappropriate expressions of relief, such as smiling that he wasn't the one killed. It is reasonable, but sad, that "normal" people would misunderstand these expressions, and would accuse Robison of being "weird" or "uncaring". Sadly Robison suffers blows to his self-esteem as a result of the numerous comments and criticisms he endures. It shows remarkable resilience of character that Robison survives as well as he does. Robison does give examples of positive life events and supportive people who were affirming of his uniqueness. The learning (when Robison is in his forties) that he has a condition that is named, with a cluster of features that are relatively consistent across people with Autism Spectrum Disorder, which Asperger's syndrome is now considered to be the milder form of. The real highlights for me of this book include the breathtaking detail of his describing what it is like to be the lighting engineer when you have an enormous fired up crowd in an auditorium, and you literally have the heart and soul, and fate of this heaving "organism" (his words) in your hand. This for me was true literature-- so beautifully described. I was there with Robison-- standing at that lighting console, my heart in mouth, praying that his lighting designs would work. Other passages, such as when he describes standing with his son at a railway line, awaiting the ascent of a diesel engine. He does not overdo the descriptions, the passages are action-based, but the movement and noise is well conveyed. I wonder if possessing an "Aspie's" attention to detail, Robison is able to notice details the "normal" person dismisses unconsciously, and hence has difficulty recalling. I struggle to detail any aspect of this book that I did not like. The prose was well constructed, without lengthy passages of detail that could have been difficult to wade through. He effectively uses internal dialogue to convey the uncertainty and negative self-talk that we all use to a lesser or greater extent, but is especially poignant in Robison's case. Possibly my enjoyment of this book was enhanced by having read his brother's earlier book "Running with scissors". I still feel however, that I would be singing this book's praises, even so. I will be recommending this book to anyone who has an interest in the human condition.

Muito bem escrito, um relato intimista e bem humorado. Recomendo muito a leitura dele para quem quer aprender um pouco mais sobre a vida de quem é Asperger.

I have worked with some Aspergians and reading this book made me understand so many things I did not at the time. I wish I'd read it sooner.

No issue with seller, I ordered, and it arrived in about 3 weeks. It looks to be a well thumbed store copy? I put it in the freezer "just in case of bedbugs" which occurred to me to be a very real possibility with buying used books online. When it gets to be -30C I will put it outside overnight to ease my mind. No one wants those things, just the thought gives me heebie jeebies! I'm NOT saying the book is infested, I'm just being cautious. Now we've had 2 weeks of January -30C temperatures, I have read & thoroughly enjoyed this book. The author refers to conversations with Daniel Tammet and Temple Grandin who I have also read and enjoyed on different levels. Mr Robison has written an enjoyable book, thoughtfully challenging first perspective view of his experiences with Aspergers Autism. His written voice is honest and clear, at times it seems like fiction because of the vastly different experiences he describes. I hope to read more of his work. I highly recommend this book for fun and insight!

Super story by John elder