I loved this book and I will definitely be buying a copy of it for my personal library. I can see this flying off the shelves at my public library as well.

This is probably one of the most interesting reviews that I’ve ever sat down to write. It’s very easy, you see, to write a review about a piece of fiction. It’s also easy, I think, to review non-fiction related to history, education, politics, or a memoir. And I guess I always feel a little weird when I’m reviewing something that could be classified as a self-help memoir Often, I’ve found myself measuring books like this based on the quality of the support provided and I generally don’t read them incredibly often. <i>ADHD is Awesome</i> is the sort of book I sit down with feeling as though I learned a lot and found quite a large amount of it useful—whether to myself or my partner—but am also cognizant of how very personalized the story is due to the numerous personal experiences highlighted on by the authors.

Suffice to say, I think that this entire book is very useful. I think there is a lot of information that can be gleaned from it and it was certainly far more of an entertaining read than your typical ADHD support book. That said, there are also sections that feel as though they contain more fluff than is really necessary. And ultimately, I think it’s important to take the authors at their word: this is not the end all be all of ADHD books. It’s a tips and tricks sort of book with a side of personal stories with the hope that readers may find pieces of the advice useful in their day to day. It’s a positive hype up to support those who have negative feelings about their diagnosis or life struggles.

And there’s a lot of merit in that.

But if you’re reading this because you’re hoping this will be the one and only book you have to read about ADHD, it’s probably not going to do what you want it to. As an educator who works daily with a large variety of students, many who have very similar struggles, a lot of the information in this book rang true for how we should treat children. In fact, much of what I do as an educator to encourage and support fell in line with a lot of what Holderness said about how we should be treating our ADHD adults. It’s such a wonderful thing to see and a truly interested topic of conversation to have.

Why is it we talk so much about encouragement and positive reinforcement with children and not adults? I think it has generally been proven over and over again that this approach is the best possible one you could have. It’s across the board with children, with adults, with dogs, with everyone. If nothing else, I think that is the most important takeaway to leave this book with.