When I saw it at Costco last week, I bought it. In hardcover. I wouldn't normally do that, but the jacket said the main character was an Aspie teen. How could I not??? I'd only read one other of her books, My Sister's Keeper, and enjoyed it, so I started right in.
Oh, Jodi, jumping on the autism/Asperger's bandwagon with not enough research. Or at least not enough in the real world.
Just a couple of pages into the book, it was obvious to me that Jodi had little actual experience with children in the spectrum, and what constitutes Asperger's. Her protagonist had withdrawn and gone non-verbal around age two, and it took many specialists working with him, a drastic change in diet, more supplements than even my ex takes (and that's a LOT), and constant monitoring by his mom to get him functional. His is mainstreamed, but has a sensory break room at the school with weighted blankets, special lamps, oh, you name it. His routines are too many to enumerate, and a break with one gets him stimming and panicking until a full fledged tantrum, complete with head-banging, ensues. His mother calls him high-functioning; I suppose he is, but this is a person who will never be able to live on his own. He will need someone to stand between him and the world for the rest of his life, which his younger brother talks about in one chapter.
Jacob is full-blown autistic. If any of you have read the books of Temple Grandin (or seen the movie), he is further along the spectrum, and less able to handle himself than she. A parent who has just received a diagnosis of Asperger's for their child who reads this will fall into despair at what lies ahead--with no good reason. I know quite a number of Aspies, some of them in my own family, who do not have behaviors that anywhere approach Jacob's.
Oh, and she talks about vaccines causing it. That article has been debunked. And while there may still be some debate on the massing of vaccines for an infant, it is not the definitive cause.
The plot itself was rather thin, which added to my un-enjoyment of the book, but I had to keep reading, hoping she was going to pull it all together in a satisfying manner. Nope. She tried to tie in Jacob's biggest obsession with the overall happening of the book, but it felt contrived, and left me confused as to why it happened at all.
I don't think I'll be reading anything else by Jodi Picoult. If all her other books are as heavy-handed, preachy, and poorly researched, they wouldn't be worth it.
3 comments:
I'm glad to read your review. My cousin is 12, almost 13. He has some learning difficulties and speech/language difficulties. He needs enroll in a new school next school year and his parents are having a very hard time finding a school that will accept him. The school that specializes in dyslexia rejected him because when they tested him with their doctors he tested in the autism spectrum. I do not believe he's autistic. Well, my grandmother is currently reading this book and she's convinced he has Asperger's. I don't think he does. I'm not a doctor of course, but I don't think throwing all these labels on him is going to help him either. They had one doctor from one school say that and now they're all freaking out...and now this damn book!
I don't say this lightly; but a book burning would not be out of order.
Vaccines cause autism? This is the kind of crap that just fills me with rage and makes me want to grab the lighter fluid.
I'm glad to have seen this review Eileen. I'll not be reading this book. I have a friend (I call her a Bible-beating Christian because...well, she is one and her ideas are quite skewed as a result) who believes that her son's autism was caused by vaccines. She further believes she "cured" him with a special diet. Sigh... anyway, thanks for the heads up.
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