Steener

Interesting autobiography; not autism-informative

Revisado: 03-13-15

Is there anything you would change about this book?

The author does not have any training in science, psychology, or logic; which is not a crime in itself, but he constantly uses "I'm autistic, so therefore I cannot help but think logically!" to explain away some very illogical lines of thought and fabricated narratives. As an autistic scientist myself, this drove me up the wall.

He comes up with a lot of mighty tempting narratives that sound pretty plausible, and states them as facts and logic (think: bad evolutionary psychology papers). Nobody is born with a solid grasp on logic or science, not even autistic people (although they might have a leg-up on the competition). This is why there is extensive coursework and schooling for these subjects.

I would have much preferred that the author frame this story as an interesting autobiography of somebody with a very weird and interesting life who happened to be autistic. Did his autism influence and affect his life and perception? Certainly it did, and that makes his accounts very interesting, but he should have left out his countless "autism teaching moments" where he pauses the story to say "now see, this is all because of my autism, clearly I had no choice and clearly I was the only logical one there."

I would have removed these parts, partly because they got repetitive and obnoxious, and mostly because there is no way to parse out how much of his reactions are due to his autism and how much are due to his traumatic and tumultuous childhood (or even some combination of both).

I love autism self-advocacy and I think it is very important, but he loves to make "scientific" and "psychiatric" evaluations of his actions post-hoc, when he doesn't have any training in these fields (and this is painfully obvious). Just as a woman is uniquely qualified to speak about her experiences and feelings as a woman, she cannot describe her own biology accurately unless she had received sufficient education in biology or performed sufficient biological studies and learned that way.

For these reasons, if you are interested in autism self-advocacy or you want to learn more about autism, I would suggest sticking to Rudy Simone or Temple Grandin instead. They are more scientifically-minded than John Elder Robison and are more versed in the nuances of autism and individual experiences. If you just want to read a fun autobiography from a man who had an incredibly unusual (even for an Aspergian) life and you don't necessarily need to learn anything about autism, then Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger's will fit the bill. Because don't get me wrong, it was still a fun and exciting narrative.

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A bit of a slog.

Revisado: 10-28-14

How would you have changed the story to make it more enjoyable?

I would have trimmed the content down a bit. I liked how much detail there was, and I also liked how the whole point of the book seems to have been depicting people who were completely dead inside and just "phoning it in" for their jobs and lives, but I feel like it dwelled on that bit of atmospherics for almost the entire book. A good premise, but it needed to be more concise.

As it was, "Shift" ended up making me feel like the characters, and the only thing keeping me listening to "Shift" was my long morning commute. So it was already a part of my ritual, and there was no point in changing it. I guess that makes me exactly like the characters in "Shift."

Any additional comments?

I loved "Wool" immensely. I loved every single character in "Wool," even the "bad guys." I even loved the romance that people seem to like protesting about. After finishing "Wool," I got "Shift" as soon as I could, anxious to spend more time in this world.

While I like how "Shift" answered many of my questions about "Wool," I didn't like the long slog and I didn't care about any of the characters nearly as much as the denizens of "Wool." I especially didn't care about Washington DC in the above-ground near-future (which populates about a third of the book).

Would I have been so harsh on "Shift," if it didn't come after "Wool"? I'm not sure. I think much of my criticism boils down to "it wasn't as good as 'Wool,' which was excellent."

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