I read through several different books about adults with asperger's, or that were found to have been diagnosed with asperger's as adults, as most of the material you find right now deals with kids. He spent a lot more time talking about his life in general than talking about his asperger's. I really found the book "Look me in the Eye" to be a much more interesting and useful read, along with a few other books.

(Tim Page, has recently noted that he dropped the "growing up with undiagnosed asperger's subtitle from the paperback copy, as he didn't want it to seem to be a sort of guidebook to the autism spectrum, which could be better found elsewhere)
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I came away from this book asking what the point was.

Asperger's Syndrome is a condition that we still don't understand very well. It didn't even become an official diagnosis until 1994. Tim Page is one of many who were diagnosed late. This book is a description of his early struggles.

But his success came much later. He managed a career, a diagnosis, and, obviously, a book. But we gain very little insight into how it happened. Today, children are much more likely to be correctly diagnosed as autistic, and to be given proper guidance. Where Page could help is by telling adults, and those who were diagnosed late, how he succeeded. There is very little of that here. I am still wondering, who could this book possibly help? ( )

I'm not sure what I think of this book. I wonder if I were an "Aspie" if I would understand the way he writes better, his train of thought, or the directions he goes from paragraph to paragraph (or sentence to sentence). The most intriguing parts of the book, to me, were the first and last parts, because he actually begins to somewhat analyze his life with Aspergers. The rest of the book seemed to talk merely about his life as a whole, granted he mentions issues here and there, but also diverts multiple times about music or other things that don't seem to relate. Then again, his Pulitzer came from music review, and it's obviously his main interest, so maybe he just couldn't help himself. Maybe talking about music was his way of telling us about himself. These are things I wish I knew more, wish he'd talked more about...but maybe that requires a biography. Someone on the outside looking in. ( )

Whoa. This guy can write. ( )

Tim Page's story is certainly well told; which is not surprising, since he makes his living as an award-winning (the Pulitzer Prize, no less) writer, and was a long-time music critic for the Washington Post. While I didn't find his story quite as interesting as John Elder Robison's LOOK ME IN THE EYE, it was certainly better than the two Temple Grandin books I've read in the past few years. But that is probably not a fair comparison, since Grandin's autism was much more pronounced and severe than either that of Page or Robison, both of whom would probably be classified as very high functioning Asperger's Syndrome. Indeed, Page, who mentions Robison's book, said he had even taught himself by an early age to look people in the eye; his father insisted that he do it. Probably the biggest difference between the Page and Robison books was that Page remained quite reticent about his personal life once he'd reached adulthood. His marriages are only briefly mentioned and his three sons were quite obviously out of bounds, as far as this book was concerned.

But there is one particular passage, found on the last page of his story which caught me - convinced me that I would like Tim Page should I ever meet him, eye contact or not. Here it is:

"I have a mistrust of happy endings. Still, today - this hour - I am satisfied. Soon I will return to a house full of books, most of which I've read and some of which I've created - a youthful dream fulfilled."

Me too, Tim. Be happy. ( )