baybay11098's review
3.0
Every stutterer has two things in common:
1. Their name is one of the hardest things for them to say.
2. They have, at least once, been asked if they forgot their name.
I wish I could tell everyone I know to read this. It does a good job explaining all the feelings and scenarios that a person who stutters has gone through. Every time I have to order food, I look through the entire menu to find something that won't be difficult for me to say. I substitute words all the time, which sometimes results in very obtuse descriptions and makes people think and sometimes even say, "Why did you say it like that?"
I consider myself lucky because of how good I am at word substitution because I've been able to hide my stutter from coworkers and most of my friends to the point where they don't know about it until I tell them. But I also consider myself unlucky because it makes it too easy a lot of the time, and avoidance just results in no progress or even backwards progress. Today, I am unable to say things fluently that I would've been able to say a few years ago.
Maybe I'll try what Preston does here. She stuttered on purpose in private and in public. It helped her to normalize it. I think it's important, too, how this book explains stuttering for those who don't stutter. It explains how stuttering isn't always a repetition of a sound, but can mean struggling to get any sound at all ("blocking") or stretch a sound out ("prolongation"). It can result in weird movements with your arms and legs or awkward facial movements.
I enjoyed Katherine's story about her acceptance of her speech. I'm one of those stutterers who leans towards avoidance, and I know that to make myself less anxious about speaking, I need to accept myself. Katherine tells us how she put herself through tough obstacles and how she came away in the end without anxiety or nervousness. Now she stutters in public ordering food, talking to strangers, and even giving public speeches without caring if others will think badly of her. I'll keep her story in mind for when I need the extra strength.
1. Their name is one of the hardest things for them to say.
2. They have, at least once, been asked if they forgot their name.
I wish I could tell everyone I know to read this. It does a good job explaining all the feelings and scenarios that a person who stutters has gone through. Every time I have to order food, I look through the entire menu to find something that won't be difficult for me to say. I substitute words all the time, which sometimes results in very obtuse descriptions and makes people think and sometimes even say, "Why did you say it like that?"
I consider myself lucky because of how good I am at word substitution because I've been able to hide my stutter from coworkers and most of my friends to the point where they don't know about it until I tell them. But I also consider myself unlucky because it makes it too easy a lot of the time, and avoidance just results in no progress or even backwards progress. Today, I am unable to say things fluently that I would've been able to say a few years ago.
Maybe I'll try what Preston does here. She stuttered on purpose in private and in public. It helped her to normalize it. I think it's important, too, how this book explains stuttering for those who don't stutter. It explains how stuttering isn't always a repetition of a sound, but can mean struggling to get any sound at all ("blocking") or stretch a sound out ("prolongation"). It can result in weird movements with your arms and legs or awkward facial movements.
I enjoyed Katherine's story about her acceptance of her speech. I'm one of those stutterers who leans towards avoidance, and I know that to make myself less anxious about speaking, I need to accept myself. Katherine tells us how she put herself through tough obstacles and how she came away in the end without anxiety or nervousness. Now she stutters in public ordering food, talking to strangers, and even giving public speeches without caring if others will think badly of her. I'll keep her story in mind for when I need the extra strength.
juniben145's review
5.0
Beautifully written and touching in ways I didn't expect; an excellent read for anyone looking to know more about the stuttering experience.
honeyedorange's review
5.0
It was such a pleasure to see that this memoir was on my reading list for a class on fluency I am enrolled in. Almost immediately after I cracked it open, I could anticipate the great joy of following Katherine Preston's journey towards self-acceptance. As a person with a chronic condition around which there is some stigma, I can begin to imagine the desire she had to push away the stutter and even conceptualize it as separate from her identity. In the book, the stutter is compared to a "good-for-nothing husband who would be sweet for weeks on end and then come back to push me around," (224) and also to a "wily opponent who encamped himself in [her] body and ensured that [her] personal battlefield was always in flux" (76). In my eyes, the process of reintegrating this part of herself she once described as a "dirty secret" took on the aspect of deep inner work, piecing together the "mythology" of her past into something cohesive, making sense of what might have been fragmentary by putting her impressions into words. Integration becomes possible by listening to others' stories, hundreds of stories that have been distilled to morsels interspersed throughout so that the triumphs, insights, and pain of others aren't simply retold but examined and reflected on in relation to the listener's experiences with stuttering. The stutterers mentioned represent a wide swathe of experiences with stuttering. While the author makes the personal decision to embrace her stutter, she doesn't discredit those who strive for greater fluency. I love the honest conversations she has with her parents and friends, the way she learns to speak up unapologetically, and the reflections on her shifting attitude towards her stutter. I wished for more chapters and more specifics on her journeys across America and to read more about how the aim evolved as she confronted the research, technology, and techniques available. Her opinions as someone directly impacted by advances in the field would have been notable.
skypager21's review against another edition
3.0
She is a little intense, I think that is the point of the book. She is intelligent and driven young woman who has everything going for her except a bad stutter. It drives her crazy but she has channeled her energy into writing this memoir. She is pretty incredible how she has networked with other stutters (something I am not sure I would have the confidence to do). Anyway kind of an interesting book, not sure how broad the appeal to non-stutters, except maybe to gain some insight and empathy to how difficult it can be.
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