Take a photo of a barcode or cover
wandering_not_lost 's review for:
An Outsider's Guide to Humans
by Camilla Pang
This is a book about how to use scientific concepts as a way to understand what you're seeing when you look at human behavior, so you can then decide what to do in response. It's not a workbook or a list of tips, though as the author says, this framework gave her a compass and a map to navigate otherwise fraught situations.
This is a very reassuring book, its tone is very firmly in the "do what you need to do to be able to live the life you want, but also be true to yourself" camp. "If this is the problem you're encountering, how can you better understand it so you can navigate it or go around it?" is the main thrust. And several times scientific concepts are invoked to point out that "normal" is just a concept, that any collection of differences is expected and "normal" within a sufficiently large population. We are all part of the system.
I think that there's a lot that people of all neurodivergences can take from this book. We all have our own quirks, our own mental blocks, our own anxieties and struggles. Looking at situations from a different angle can help with those, and the author's point of view is a fresh and new way to do that.
This is a very reassuring book, its tone is very firmly in the "do what you need to do to be able to live the life you want, but also be true to yourself" camp. "If this is the problem you're encountering, how can you better understand it so you can navigate it or go around it?" is the main thrust. And several times scientific concepts are invoked to point out that "normal" is just a concept, that any collection of differences is expected and "normal" within a sufficiently large population. We are all part of the system.
I think that there's a lot that people of all neurodivergences can take from this book. We all have our own quirks, our own mental blocks, our own anxieties and struggles. Looking at situations from a different angle can help with those, and the author's point of view is a fresh and new way to do that.