Reviews tagging 'Child abuse'

Strong Female Character by Fern Brady

31 reviews

laurenkimoto's review

challenging emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective tense medium-paced

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Classism, Dysphoria, Grief, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Sexual violence, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Ableism, Blood, Bullying, Eating disorder, Medical trauma, Religious bigotry, Sexism, Sexual harassment, Biphobia, Cursing, Forced institutionalization, Toxic relationship, Body horror, Body shaming, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Medical content, Self harm, Sexual assault, Mental illness, Misogyny, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Alcohol, Drug abuse, and Suicidal thoughts

paddy_chh's review against another edition

emotional funny informative inspiring medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicidal thoughts, Alcohol, Panic attacks/disorders, Ableism, Physical abuse, Addiction, Forced institutionalization, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, and Self harm

Moderate: Medical trauma, Body shaming, Pedophilia, Sexism, Child abuse, Misogyny, Adult/minor relationship, Classism, Sexual content, Drug abuse, Drug use, and Toxic relationship

lovelyoutliers's review

funny informative slow-paced

3.0

This memoir gives us a look into Fern’s life through the lens of late diagnosed autism. She showed how some of her early life struggles were shaped by neurodivergence and how it affects her life. 

It’s an important addition to the sparse literature focused on autistic females. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic relationship, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic friendship, Mental illness, Sexual violence, Bullying, Child abuse, Drug use, Rape, Eating disorder, and Sexual content

tetrootz's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative reflective fast-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Chronic illness, Suicide, Religious bigotry, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Panic attacks/disorders, Misogyny, Drug abuse, Body shaming, Self harm, Grief, Sexual assault, Mental illness, Blood, Bullying, Confinement, Sexual content, Injury/Injury detail, Excrement, Cursing, Toxic friendship, Infidelity, Fatphobia, Adult/minor relationship, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Stalking, Sexual harassment, Rape, Eating disorder, Medical trauma, Forced institutionalization, Addiction, Homophobia, Gaslighting, Dysphoria, Drug use, Ableism, Classism, Violence, Toxic relationship, Sexual violence, Sexism, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Pedophilia, Emotional abuse, Abandonment, Vomit, Physical abuse, and Medical content

Moderate: Police brutality and Pandemic/Epidemic

Minor: Dementia

merfdiff's review against another edition

dark informative reflective sad medium-paced

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Ableism, Self harm, Mental illness, Adult/minor relationship, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Forced institutionalization, Physical abuse, and Child abuse

alyshab2005's review

emotional funny informative reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

I've been a fan of Fern Brady's stand-up for a while now...I love her intelligent and blunt insights. Here she tells her own story of isolation and confusion as an undiagnosed autistic woman. She's incredibly honest about the less social acceptable parts of living with autism (breaking furniture, physical assault, unhealthy relationships). Still, at so many points in the book you feel just intense empathy and worry for her. I love that she doesn't try to tie up the end with a pretty bow, but leaves it still unresolved, a work in progress.  I especially recommend the audio book as she reads it herself.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Forced institutionalization, Gaslighting, Sexual content, Addiction, Cursing, Violence, Child abuse, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Adult/minor relationship, Bullying, Drug use, Eating disorder, Suicidal thoughts, and Self harm

siebensommer's review

challenging funny reflective medium-paced

4.0

my rage felt too dangerous to be aired outside of my bedroom 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Self harm, Eating disorder, Ableism, Abandonment, and Mental illness

Moderate: Forced institutionalization, Child abuse, Sexism, and Toxic relationship

lbelow's review

5.0

Powerful and powerfully relatable memoir. Prior to reading, I was pretty sure I'm not autistic, but so many experiences in this book make me wonder. Maybe that was why I glommed onto this book so hard. Then again, it could just be the engaging and open way Fern Brady writes. This book discusses some heavy topics but, maybe because of the light, casual tone, it didn't feel like a dark book. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Cursing, Infidelity, Forced institutionalization, Fatphobia, Biphobia, Domestic abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Adult/minor relationship, Physical abuse, Mental illness, Body shaming, Drug use, Suicide attempt, Sexism, Gaslighting, Violence, Eating disorder, Toxic relationship, Panic attacks/disorders, Grief, Alcohol, Self harm, Ableism, and Child abuse

jillyclaire23's review

emotional informative reflective sad medium-paced

4.0

Woah. I feel very raw after reading this book. I am so glad it exists, and I am grateful for Fern’s full honesty about her life as a late-diagnosed autistic woman who grew up poor and struggles with meltdowns. Her openness helps other autistic women feel less alone. Even though I’ve done my fair share of research about neurodivergence (duh), I managed to learn new facts, like how medicine affects autistic people differently than allistics because our nervous systems are so sensitive. That’s really important information to know!! There is simply not enough research out there on neurodivergence so we have to rely on each other.

I was wishing for a slightly more hopeful ending to help me recover from reading how many traumatic things happened to Fern. I guess I appreciate that she didn’t try to tie it up into a pretty bow. In the conclusion, though, it almost felt like she was conceding to the “autism parents” out there who are raising autistic kids instead of addressing actual autistic adult readers and giving them hope. This felt uncharacteristic of her since she discussed the problem of autism research being geared toward parents of autistic children and disregarding the fact that those kids grow up to be adults. So the ending was slightly disappointing, but it still moved me. My other issue is her fat-shaming and negative descriptions of people’s appearances. Also, I would’ve appreciated if her descriptions of other women and her relationship to them were more problematized—a lot of them came off as internalized misogyny. 

Despite this, I am grateful for any chance to hear from another autistic woman and her experience. Like she says in the book, learning about your neurotype is like a REALLY accurate Meyers-Briggs test. The sense of community I get in hearing her talk about experiences that resemble my own is pretty lifechanging. I also appreciated reading about her unusual career path in life. It’s hard to be surrounded by unrealistic neurotypical narratives all the time! 

After reading, I promptly watched her interviews and comedy specials. She’s awesome. Her understanding and sense of justice when it comes to the experiences and treatment of neurodivergent people are refreshing.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide attempt, Mental illness, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Drug abuse, Fatphobia, Abandonment, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Eating disorder, and Police brutality

beckyjzw's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative inspiring sad fast-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Suicide attempt, Self harm, and Child abuse