Read this honest review of a Mother's book on Autism!

“From the moment of her birth, Farema was not like her sisters. She didn’t respond normally to sounds or the touch of a hand. She was different. Embrace this mother’s deeply personal account of tragedies and triumphs, along with joys and sorrows of raising a child with the devastating disability of autism. When lives have been turned upside down and we have nothing left to cling to, God offers amazing grace to find encouragement and authentic hope in the face of overwhelming confusion and grief.”

I was pleasantly surprised when I was contacted about doing a book review for Bring It On Communications. Okay – “pleasantly surprised” is a tad of an understatement. Pumped UP is more of an accurate description. I love to both read and write, so this was the perfect combination of the two. It also cut down on the excuses that I could make to NOT read a book, once I commited to them.

So I was pumped up.

Then I received the book and took a look at the cover and title…

I am not going to lie, my excitement bubble deflated just a tad upon receiving the book in the mail. NOTHING about the title or cover picture excited me. Okay – I am a pretty devout Christian, therefore I know and appreciate that “God is gracious”…. but for a book title? The picture on the front didn’t really do it for me either. Had I been in a bookstore with this sitting on the shelf, I would have walked right by it.

However, I plowed into the book with as optimistic of an attitude as I could, based on my first impressions. I was, however, surprised that within the first couple chapters I was unable to put the book down. Lauri’s sad story of marrying too young, divorcing, moving alone with two little girls, and then marrying another man whom she did not love, sucked me in immediately. I quickly made it through the first ten chapters of the book. Then it plateau’ed. The middle to the end of the book, I kept wondering where the author was headed and waiting for something to “happen.” The end of the story wasn’t very exciting and sort of left me hanging. I understand that this was a non-fiction book, but I was expecting a bigger ending than ever came about.

What I DID enjoy about the story was learning some more details on autism and getting insight on how hard it must be to have a loved one suffer from it. I would definitely recommend this book to someone who knows an autistic person, but to the average reader – probably not. This book was “just okay” for me.

To read more reviews on this and other books, go to Tell Us The Truth Reviews! 

ISBN-10 1-935265
ISBN-13 9781935265467
Deep River Books 2011