Title: Autism in Heels: The Untold Story of a Female Life on the Spectrum
Author: Jennifer Cook O’Toole
Genre: Memoir
Trigger Warnings: Bullying, sexual assault and violence, self-harm, eating disorders
Back Cover:
The face of autism is changing. And more often than we realize, that face is wearing lipstick.
Autism in Heels , an intimate memoir, reveals the woman inside one of autism’s most prominent figures, Jennifer O’Toole. At the age of thirty-five, Jennifer was diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, and for the first time in her life, things made sense. Now, Jennifer exposes the constant struggle between carefully crafted persona and authentic existence, editing the autism script with wit, candor, passion, and power. Her journey is one of reverse-self-discovery not only as an Aspie but–more importantly–as a thoroughly modern woman.
Beyond being a memoir, Autism in Heels is a love letter to all women. It’s a conversation starter. A game changer. And a firsthand account of what it is to walk in Jennifer’s shoes (especially those iconic red stilettos).
Whether it’s bad perms or body image, sexuality or self-esteem, Jennifer’s is as much a human journey as one on the spectrum. Because autism “looks a bit different in pink,” most girls and women who fit the profile are not identified, facing years of avoidable anxiety, eating disorders, volatile relationships, self-harm, and stunted independence. Jennifer has been there, too. Autism in Heels takes that message to the mainstream.
From her own struggles and self-discovery, she has built an empire of empowerment, inspiring women the world over to realize they aren’t mistakes. They are misunderstood miracles.
Review:
I have never before in my life read a memoir, mostly because I’m not particularly interested in them. But my mother-in-law checked this out from the library for me, and I mostly started reading it because I was too awkward to give it back to her without at least trying to read it. Sure, I was interested in learning more about autism in women, but I was kind of put off by the memoir aspect.
It actually turned out to be really good, though. In the beginning, she talks about her children’s diagnoses, her diagnosis, and her research of how autism presents differently in girls than in the boys that most research is done on. I spend a lot of that part reading quotes out loud to my husband and going, “Hey, that’s me, I didn’t even realize that was an autistic thing.” She then went back through a lot of her life and showed how things she didn’t understand made more sense in an autism context.
Some of it was hard to read. I was homeschooled, so I never even had the opportunity to be bullied, but her description of how cruel her peers were to her when she didn’t pick up on social nuances was really difficult to read. She also had a chapter about her sexual abuse, but she did put a trigger warning on that chapter (and the one about self-harm/eating disorders), so I just skipped that one altogether. She combines her story with the research she’s done, and the book doesn’t seem like a memoir as much as a discussion of autism, specifically autism in girls, illustrated by examples from one person’s life.
This is a short review, but I don’t have a whole lot to say. It was a very good book. I saw a lot of myself in the pages, and even some of my autistic husband, and it was inspiring to see how the socially ostracized little girl became a renowned speaker on autism. The only real criticism I have is that she only brushed against the idea of gender roles and emotional labor and how they affect autistic girls. I highly recommend this to anyone who is or knows an autistic girl and wants to learn more about how they think.
Bluejay Reads 