I'm enjoying the book so far. You know it's about a young man with Asperger's who is obsessed with forensics, then because of his autistic symptoms he becomes a suspect. I'm not finished it yet but it's given me a lot to think about.
Like how Jacob's family do everything for him and try to make his life easier. For me, that never happened. My mum would be over protective sure, but my siblings tried to make me normal, and they treated me horribly.
And if Jacob has AS around this time he wouldn't have been diagnosed as early as 1995. Or maybe I got that date wrong?
I don't really like Theo even though many NT's in the book club reading the book feel sorry for him. Sure he has to go through a lot but he doesn't have autism. Maybe I'm just finding it difficult to empathise with him.
Maybe I'm looking at it too literally but it seems that Jacob has all the autism services and people looking out for him, like kids are today, instead of being yelled at for being weird and forced to be normal like many adults with autism are.
Does anyone relate more to Jacob's or my situation?
I know there's been threads on this but I really wanted those those points discussed, or cleared up for me.
Which are:
1. Jacob's family doing everything for him vs. the reality of growing up and being forced to be normal and yelled at for being different.
2. Should I feel sorry for Theo? I have trouble seeing why I should feel sorry for the family members of autistics. Sorry if that offends anyone. I'm really trying to understand.
12 Nov 2010, 11:38 pm
