You hear of a lot of books about autistic children. This is one with an autistic adult voice and is written very well. Feel many readers will love this from beginning to end.

I think it can be hard to represent autistic experience in a solo-authored book, and this is a good attempt. It's nice to see the interests of an autistic person represented in a broadly positive way. There were times when I felt like the author seemed a bit negative about himself, which can be hard to read, but it was honest. There are sections that will resonate with a lot of autistic people, such as finally making friends through a shared love of an 'acceptable' interest like music.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me to read an arc of this book.

This book was pretty good. It was very interesting to read about another autistic person's special interests and how it shaped their life. I do however found it difficult to read sometimes because of two reasons...

The first being that it was told in a non chronological order and that confused me a lot. The timeline for everything that happened is a mess in my head.
My memory is quite bad because of some of my disabilities and yeah my brain doesn't like non chronological storytelling.

The second reason being that the sentences were just a bit long at times. Which would be fine for any other reader probably, but I'm dyslexic so long sentences are my arch nemesis.

Anyway this book was still quite good, especially for a debut, so I do still recommend it to people who wanna know more about special interests in a more memoir-ish form.

There are a lot of books about autism. Not enough by far of those are written by autistic adults, and even less are about adults. This is the kind of book we all really, really need.

I noticed myself nodding and humming at about everything I read. From having a stim that is not often recognized (for me it's knitting instead of Lego blocks) to having more empathy than is good for me, I knew it all. I love how it is all tied to special interests, and how those special interests can help us get through life as guides, examples, and also safe havens. I learned how to recognize that feeling when I have been reading for hours on end and life seems so far off and unreal, and that I am not the only one feeling that way. I sight when I read about teaching and the fear before every lesson - as I stopped my teacher training in the last year as my trainer in apprenticeship predicted an outcome like Pete experienced. I am still thankful she steered me on a different course, although it still took six years and another burn-out before I knew I was autistic.

All in all I highly recommend reading this book to anyone who wants some true and experienced insights in how autistic brains can work.

Wow this was such a brilliant book. It was just what I needed to read. I was diagnosed with autism 9 months ago and despite going on a course to understand it. I knew nothing about why I am the way I am and this book helped me so much. This book was exactly what I needed. I just loved the way the author wrote this book. He states it doesn't cover the who disorder but just how he is affected. It was just brilliant and helped me understand some of the things I do like my obsession with books it just takes over my mind. He explained everything so well and was easy to understand why we ate the way we are. I just hope many people read this book. If only to discover why we have these obsessions. I always wondered why I needed to learn about everything. I especially found it interesting learning about autism burnout and how it's different from normal burnout. Yep currently there but at least I know now. I definitely recommend this book if you are autistic or know or work with someone who is.

Only the highest of praise goes out to the author and publishers for bringing us his story so that others can understand how difficult it is to live with this condition. 
The above review has already been placed on goodreads, waterstones, Google books, Barnes&noble, kobo, amazon UK where found and my blog today https://ladyreading365.wixsite.com/website/post/what-i-want-to-talk-about-by-pete-wharmby-jessica-kingsley-publishers-5-star either under my name or ladyreading365. If quoting me please don't use my last name please use ladyreading365

First of all, I’m glad the author got the opportunity to talk about the things he wants to talk about! I strongly relate to his feeling of how you hardly ever find others who are as interested in your interests as you are, so it’s great that he got this opportunity to share his interests with others who will (hopefully) be just as interested.

This book is a perfect illustration of how special interests (or hyperfixations, as the author calls them) intertwine themselves with everything else in your life. In my experience, that’s been one of the most difficult aspects of special interests to explain to non-autistic people: how my brain wants to relate everything back to those interests, and how it finds connections between my interests and seemingly unrelated things. I loved how Wharmby was able to describe various important events in his life through the lens of his interests. It was cleverly done, and helped me share in his enthusiasm.

Every time I read a book by another autistic person, I’m amazed by the experience of reading about thoughts and experiences like mine, which is not something I’m used to. Even when we’re different in significant ways, there are still core feelings and experiences that so many of us share. The explanation in this book of what it’s like to learn how to mask as a child resonated deeply with me, and felt like I was reading my own thoughts in someone else’s work. I cherish the opportunity to learn what I have in common with other autistic people, and will be recommending this book to my autistic friends for that reason alone.

I also appreciate seeing where our experiences and perceptions don’t overlap, and how those differences can illuminate blind spots. At one point, the author imagines how his life might have been easier if his special interests had been more acceptable and less nerdy (like sports instead of Warhammer). But my experience is that you can have perfectly acceptable interests and still be ostracized for them if you don’t talk about them in the “right” way or are low in the social hierarchy. This got me thinking about some of my own assumptions about how my life might have been different if my autistic traits and interests manifested differently.

The only issue I had with the book is I felt some of the generalizations were a bit too broad. For the most part, Wharmby does a good job reminding the reader that there’s a vast spectrum of autistic experiences, but he sometimes leaned a bit too heavily into assumptions that “many” or “most” autistic people shared his feelings about certain things. For example, the introduction states that “an autistic person’s interest in a Hyperfixation will never tire or dwindle,” even though this isn’t true even of his own experiences, much less every autistic person. I see so many questions and comments from other autistic people worrying that maybe they’re not really autistic because some of their traits don’t match common stereotypes or generalizations, so I think we have to be careful with broad statements about autism to avoid inadvertently excluding others.

I recommend this book to autistic readers wanting to share common experiences. I think it’s also a good book for helping non-autistic people look past the stereotypes and get to know an autistic person in a more nuanced way.

I received a copy of this book through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This is a great book!

Wharmby gives us a look inside his head on how special interests and autism have shaped his life. As Wharmby says this isn't really a memoir - it's about Wharmby's life but there's also stories about what autism is like and why special interests are so common. The book talks about how interests like Sims, Warhammer, and other games play into special interests and can make life manageable. I also really like how Wharmby talks about autistic burnout and how it can manifest.

An intriguing and informative read.

This book was very insightful. Pete Wharmby was diagnosed with autism at the same age I was and I found that I could relate to a lot of the things he talked about.

I found it interesting how he weaved his talk about his Special Interests/Hyperfixations into stories about his life and the difficulties he went through. He also had many of the same interests that I do, such as video games and Marvel, so reading about those was fun for me.

Some people who read this book may find that it can be kind of rambling at times and I'll admit there were some times where I felt this as well. However, I also think this book and the way it was written is a good insight into how many autistic people think and communicate, and the rambling and overexplaining can definitely a part of our communication style.

Overall, I think this is a good book to read if you want to learn more about an autistic person's life experience.

Thank you to NetGalley and Jessica Kingsley Publishers for this digital ARC!

What an insightful and informative peek into the mind of someone with autism. I’ve always wanted to be able to try to understand more about the internal workings of those with autism. And I feel like this book was beyond informative while being entertaining at the same time. I recommend this to anyone wanting to expand their knowledge and empathy.

Thank you to NetGalley and Jessica Kingsley Publishers for the advanced copy.