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Look Me in the Eye: Book summary and reviews of Look Me in the Eye by John Elder Robison

Look Me in the Eye

My Life with Asperger's

by John Elder Robison

Look Me in the Eye by John Elder Robison X
Look Me in the Eye by John Elder Robison
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  • Published Sep 2007
    304 pages
    Genre: Biography/Memoir

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Book Summary

Look Me in the Eye is the moving, darkly funny story of growing up with Asperger’s at a time when the diagnosis simply didn’t exist. A born storyteller, Robison takes you inside the head of a boy whom teachers and other adults regarded as “defective,” who could not avail himself of KISS’s endless supply of groupies, and who still has a peculiar aversion to using people’s given names (he calls his wife“Unit Two”). He also provides a fascinating reverse angle on the younger brother he left at the mercy of their nutty parents—the boy who would later change his name to Augusten Burroughs and write the bestselling memoir Running with Scissors.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"Starred Review. Robison succeeds in his goal of helping those who are struggling to grow up or live with Asperger's to see how it is not a disease but a way of being that needs no cure except understanding and encouragement from others." - PW.

"John Robison's book is an immensely affecting account of a life lived according to his gifts rather than his limitations. His story provides ample evidence for my belief that individuals on the autistic spectrum are just as capable of rich and productive lives as anyone else." - Daniel Tammet, author of Born on a Blue Day: Inside the Extraordinary Mind of an Autistic Savant.

This information about Look Me in the Eye was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

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Cloggie Downunder

interesting, insightful, funny
Look Me In The Eye: My Life With Asperger’s is the first book by John Elder Robison. Not diagnosed with Asperger’s until he was forty, Robison describes himself as a misfit. In this book he tells of growing up in an extremely dysfunctional family. Some of the story has been told by his younger brother Chris, better known as Augusten Burroughs, in Running With Scissors. He goes on to tell of his life after dropping out of high school, his fascination with all things electronic, his life with the band, making smoking guitars for KISS, engineering at Milton-Bradley, and eventually becoming his own boss repairing European cars. All this is told in a matter-of-fact and totally unsentimental way (as you would expect from an Aspergian), and with the benefit of hindsight, Robison explains his actions and reactions. This book is interesting and insightful; it is also very funny: Robison’s chapters on post-hole diggers, plastic cocaine and many other pranks, having a baby, and choosing a wife produce giggles, snickers and laugh-out-loud moments. An interesting comment on Asperger’s and on life in general.

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