Scan barcode
bluesydaisy's review against another edition
informative
reflective
fast-paced
1.75
I really struggled with this one.
The author has an autistic child and describes her experience with this. It's not great. She seems resentful of having an autistic child. I had to take a break from it for a few weeks. When I came back to the book it was okay for several chapters with no mention of her son until the end of the book. It's very distracting from the topic of self compassion, and I'm not really sure how the two are connected. She doesn't seem to have a lot of compassion for her child. She's learned some things, but there is still a lot of ableism by the end of the book.
I would consider giving the book 4-5 stars if everything about her child were taken out because the self compassion portion is good. It's not necessary. It's almost like she is putting two books into one. One about self compassion and one about her struggles with her child.
The whipping part was a bit weird for me too, and that whole trip her family took wasn't well described. It's not clear what the shaman did to "cure" her son. I'm glad they had a good time, but this whole chapter was not something I could use and I didn't feel inspired by it.
The author has an autistic child and describes her experience with this. It's not great. She seems resentful of having an autistic child. I had to take a break from it for a few weeks. When I came back to the book it was okay for several chapters with no mention of her son until the end of the book. It's very distracting from the topic of self compassion, and I'm not really sure how the two are connected. She doesn't seem to have a lot of compassion for her child. She's learned some things, but there is still a lot of ableism by the end of the book.
I would consider giving the book 4-5 stars if everything about her child were taken out because the self compassion portion is good. It's not necessary. It's almost like she is putting two books into one. One about self compassion and one about her struggles with her child.
The whipping part was a bit weird for me too, and that whole trip her family took wasn't well described. It's not clear what the shaman did to "cure" her son. I'm glad they had a good time, but this whole chapter was not something I could use and I didn't feel inspired by it.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Ableism
heather667's review against another edition
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Ableism, Body shaming, Infidelity, and Grief
Moderate: Bullying, Cancer, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, and Mental illness
Minor: Child abuse, Gun violence, and Physical abuse
acarbonbasedlifeform's review against another edition
Content Warnings
Moderate: Ableism, Toxic relationship, and Gaslighting
mika3's review against another edition
4.0
Good. useful. Many important ideas and good points and exercises. Many things I had already thought (that were very helpful to my growth) were in this book. Good thoughts about self esteem/ego and comparison also. I don't like that she thinks it possible to "over feel" your feelings and exaggerate your pain. personally, that's a bad vibe. also very surprised and upset by HEAVY ABLEISM SPECIFIC TO AUTISM. if you sign up to have a child you sign up to have a disabled child ok. and its borderline hilarious that one of her first thoughts was that autistics can't get PhDs. It would be funny if it wasn't horrible. I reccomend reading this and skiping all of the sections containing her personal experience as they only made the book worse in my opinion. This review is remaining unedited.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Ableism
bnscrivner's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
informative
slow-paced
2.25
This book has been recommended to me so many times, so I finally borrowed it from the library. Maybe I’m not the target audience? She uses several very disturbing examples of classism and ableism (referencing a hypothetical unsheltered person and bemoaning having an autistic son) to explain why people should care about others?
Think this might be for white heterosexual middle class people who have no social consciousness. Maybe?
Think this might be for white heterosexual middle class people who have no social consciousness. Maybe?
Content Warnings
Graphic: Ableism, Fatphobia, and Classism
tenar's review against another edition
medium-paced
I would recommend investigating the concept and practices of self-compassion (which I do think may have value) online or elsewhere, rather than in this book.
In a self-help book that the author is positing will be helpful for everyone, it seems to me she unknowingly had a very limited view of who everyone might be while writing it. It gets off on the wrong foot by using an imaginary homeless person as a prop for teaching us readers about compassion for others, really setting up who the expected audience is. Later on the author writes twice about her experience having an autistic son in such a way that it's extremely obvious she never imagined an autistic person might be reading it. The author does address that having self-compassion is not necessarily linked to having compassion for others.
In a self-help book that the author is positing will be helpful for everyone, it seems to me she unknowingly had a very limited view of who everyone might be while writing it. It gets off on the wrong foot by using an imaginary homeless person as a prop for teaching us readers about compassion for others, really setting up who the expected audience is. Later on the author writes twice about her experience having an autistic son in such a way that it's extremely obvious she never imagined an autistic person might be reading it. The author does address that having self-compassion is not necessarily linked to having compassion for others.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Ableism
Minor: Fatphobia
gracieec's review against another edition
Really upsetting reviews about autism. Went to look up more because I thought maybe she had gotten better and saw that she and her husband took they are six year old child on a difficult and frightening trip to Mongolia to have horses and shaman "heal" their child of autism. Also she supports Autism Speaks.
Many parts of this book gave me red flags, but the way she speaks of wishing she had a "normal"child and feeling self-pity about it just sent me. I thought maybe she was going to talk about having self compassion with herself for making judgments about autism, but no she was basically having self compassion in accepting that her life was destroyed by her child having autism.
Self compassion might be important but I'm going to look for it from a different source. I just cannot deal with the views from this author.
Many parts of this book gave me red flags, but the way she speaks of wishing she had a "normal"child and feeling self-pity about it just sent me. I thought maybe she was going to talk about having self compassion with herself for making judgments about autism, but no she was basically having self compassion in accepting that her life was destroyed by her child having autism.
Self compassion might be important but I'm going to look for it from a different source. I just cannot deal with the views from this author.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Ableism
arlangrey17's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
reflective
medium-paced
3.75
This is kind of a hard book to rate. Overall the information is very helpful, and I can see how self-compassion will help me going forward. But I didn't like a lot of the author's side remarks and her complaints of being the mother of an autistic son. It was also quite repetitive and the narrator made me want to fall asleep sometimes lol. Overall I learned a lot though.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Ableism and Infidelity
raysberry's review against another edition
4.75
Really really helpful, makes me think I might actually deserve to feel better and it doesn’t have to always be like that. Good exercises and I don’t have to lie to myself to make myself feel better. Only gripe with it is the way she describes her autistic son and autism in general. Sometimes it’s okay or even pretty good but then sometimes it feels really triggering. I don’t like how she focuses so much on how it impacts HER life and how hard it is for HER that he doesn’t have any friends and so on. Nothing about how much HE struggles. And though this thing they did seemingly helped him (though even that is doubtful imo), it’s a dangerous narrative to perpetuate that doing some rituals will heal someone of their autism and it’s also plain insulting.
The high rating despite that speaks to how great the rest of the content is, even if the author herself doesn’t seem to be a very likeable person. Her cheating and general imoral behaviour made me grimace not just once. I wish she would’ve gone a bit easier on personal anecdotes, it didn’t do her any favours, and focused more on the examples of other people.
But still, the ideas in this book have the potential to change many lives to the better so I’m putting my personal feelings to the side for a fair rating.
The high rating despite that speaks to how great the rest of the content is, even if the author herself doesn’t seem to be a very likeable person. Her cheating and general imoral behaviour made me grimace not just once. I wish she would’ve gone a bit easier on personal anecdotes, it didn’t do her any favours, and focused more on the examples of other people.
But still, the ideas in this book have the potential to change many lives to the better so I’m putting my personal feelings to the side for a fair rating.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Ableism
tracey1981's review against another edition
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
4.75
Content Warnings
Moderate: Ableism
Minor: Fatphobia and Sexism