Review of "Funny, You Don't Look Autistic: A Comedian's Guide to Life on the Spectrum" on 'Goodreads'
1 star
This one pissed me off, as... uh, another autistic reader diagnosed as a kid. The constant emphasis on the "obvious" differences between autistic experiences and NT experiences and on diagnostic gatekeeping by medical professionals was alienating and frustrating, as was the constant "there's no such thing as a little bit autistic" reminding. Buddy, it's a spectrum. That's literally in the name now. There isn't a single unifying Autistic Experience, as McCreary clearly knows and explicitly says, and there are wide-ranging variations in access to diagnosis for people of different socioeconomic classes, races, gender, ages, and family expectations with respect to psych professionals.
McCreary's experience of autism is so clearly that of a young white man, and it's really frustrating to see that specific autistic experience sucking up all the air again. I'd wanted to find someone telling jokes that made me giggle, aimed at an audience of Us, and that …
This one pissed me off, as... uh, another autistic reader diagnosed as a kid. The constant emphasis on the "obvious" differences between autistic experiences and NT experiences and on diagnostic gatekeeping by medical professionals was alienating and frustrating, as was the constant "there's no such thing as a little bit autistic" reminding. Buddy, it's a spectrum. That's literally in the name now. There isn't a single unifying Autistic Experience, as McCreary clearly knows and explicitly says, and there are wide-ranging variations in access to diagnosis for people of different socioeconomic classes, races, gender, ages, and family expectations with respect to psych professionals.
McCreary's experience of autism is so clearly that of a young white man, and it's really frustrating to see that specific autistic experience sucking up all the air again. I'd wanted to find someone telling jokes that made me giggle, aimed at an audience of Us, and that isn't who this book is written for. It's written, very clearly, for an audience that assumes the audience is mostly NT folks who don't have any familiarity with autism but who have absolutely not been missed by the diagnostic establishment, because real doctors would have caught this by now.
I'm really disappointed, and I'm pretty sad about it. I think I would have really enjoyed this if it wasn't for the weird potshots, but they completely threw me out of the book.