In style, it resembles David Lodge (Small World, Changing Places, Nice Work) at his most ponderous with none of his sharp wit or insights into how people think
But in content ... well, the protagonist is a successful geneticist, who, to show you how 'different' he is, refers to every person he meets as "XXXX, 24, 5'6", BMI 24" and constructs lists in his head
He has a set routines for exercise, shopping, meals (indeed, he has a Meal System and gets very distressed when these routines are disrupted
In other words, the author skimmed a few pop-psychology books about Autism and Aspergers, conflated the two in his head, and applied them with a thick brush over the top of his frankly unlikeable main character
There is one, and only one, good scene in the book, where the protagonist has to give a talk to a classroom of Aspie children, which is so accurately portrayed, with such vivid descriptions of the children's behaviour, and their parents' embarrassments, that it must have been lifted from a scientific paper during his 'research'
The plot is meandering and trite, there are NO likeable characters*, and the general Aesop you're to take away is that Aspergers can be 'cured' by being crazy and spontaneous with the right free-thinking person guiding you
Alongside the various, quite nasty. swipes at people along the Aspie spectrum - for example, the protagonist has sent so many letters suggesting 'improvements', that airlines let him travel for free in first class in a row to himself, or market stallholders have his purchases readily weighed and bagged so they don't have to talk to him - the other characters were so two dimensional (or one dimensional, in the case of the protagonist's only male friend) that it was a real struggle to keep on going to the end
So, in summary;
1) Do Not Read This Book
2) Packing 2 books a day is NOT ENOUGH when staying on a Finnish island
There was one sympathetic character, who was however portrayed as unreasonable and ridiculous by the author for being upset that her potential date had lied to her about being able to dance, when she was an excellent and frequent dancer - another example of how he mocked people with strong passions for things to the exclusion of some other considerations
Utter, awfully researched, poorly written dreck
In style, it resembles David Lodge (Small World, Changing Places, Nice Work) at his most ponderous with none of his sharp wit or insights into how people think
But in content ... well, the protagonist is a successful geneticist, who, to show you how 'different' he is, refers to every person he meets as "XXXX, 24, 5'6", BMI 24" and constructs lists in his head
He has a set routines for exercise, shopping, meals (indeed, he has a Meal System and gets very distressed when these routines are disrupted
In other words, the author skimmed a few pop-psychology books about Autism and Aspergers, conflated the two in his head, and applied them with a thick brush over the top of his frankly unlikeable main character
There is one, and only one, good scene in the book, where the protagonist has to give a talk to a classroom of Aspie children, which is so accurately portrayed, with such vivid descriptions of the children's behaviour, and their parents' embarrassments, that it must have been lifted from a scientific paper during his 'research'
The plot is meandering and trite, there are NO likeable characters*, and the general Aesop you're to take away is that Aspergers can be 'cured' by being crazy and spontaneous with the right free-thinking person guiding you
Alongside the various, quite nasty. swipes at people along the Aspie spectrum - for example, the protagonist has sent so many letters suggesting 'improvements', that airlines let him travel for free in first class in a row to himself, or market stallholders have his purchases readily weighed and bagged so they don't have to talk to him - the other characters were so two dimensional (or one dimensional, in the case of the protagonist's only male friend) that it was a real struggle to keep on going to the end
So, in summary; 1) Do Not Read This Book 2) Packing 2 books a day is NOT ENOUGH when staying on a Finnish island