I got this an arc on Netgalley and it will come out in November. This was a fantastic read. I struggled with one of the earliest chapters because it seemed counter to the premiss but its purpose became clear later. I found myself agreeing with a lot, not all, of the book which was hard to do since it's a complex matter.

Liam Odell’s Selling Out the Spectrum is a text I would recommend to anyone seeking to get caught up or refreshed on the numerous issues in academic research, medical care, politics, and the media as it pertains to autistic individuals. This book is a thoroughly researched and succinct “crash course” in historical and contemporary issues in the autism industrial complex.

Odell strikes an impressive balance between clearly communicating his stance and simultaneously presenting the alternate side in a fair light. The inclusion of perspectives from researchers, journal editors, clinicians, autistic individuals, and parents of autistic individuals (of note, these groups are not mutually exclusive) adds a wealth of professional and personal detail, thus providing readers with insight about systems that can be difficult for most to penetrate, learn about, question, and challenge. It was particularly powerful to read about the intersectionality of the Black experience within the autistic experience. Though many of the issues discussed do not have a single clear path forward, Odell is able to lay out clear strategies researchers can take: increasing community participation so studies more closely uphold what is deemed important and ethical by the autistic community. This would be an excellent start.

Selling Out the Spectrum should be required reading for any individual who hopes to, or claims to, uplift autistic people. As an allistic mental health professional trained in the 2010s who works with neurodivergent individuals, this was a challenging, necessary, and excellent read that I will be recommending to EVERYONE! Thank you to Odell, those who provided their wisdom for this book, and NetGalley for allowing me to read this ARC.

In the particular, this book is about the autistic community and their relationship with research and researchers into autism. Its conceptual scope, or applicability, is much broader, about the question in general of how science and medicine relates, or should relate, to the objects of its research.

The weak point is that it does feel particularly first-book-ish. The writing could be stronger, the organization more elegant, and the themes stated more clearly. But the journalistic qualities are stellar. This is a question that does not have a singular answer, not yet, and maybe not ever. But there are a lot of different ways to think about the question - as science, as public policy, as experience, et cetera - each that get included and considered in their own accord and in constellation.

Possibly the best quality is the author's grinding his axe gracefully. He clearly has a position, and full disclosure it is not mine, but I never felt opposing positions to be either unfairly or inaccurately represented. He has a particular talent for addressing a hostile interlocutor without rancor but with judgment.

The book is more of a starting point for discussions, again about autism in specific but with themes that are broadly applicable to every human typology, but as that it is excellent, and a comfortable read at that.

My thanks to the author, Liam O'Dell, for writing the book and to the publisher, for making the ARC available to me.

This was a short read and very fascinating to look into. The chapters were laid out very well and I liked hearing from different people throughout the book. As an autistic person myself, certain parts were quite difficult to read but I knew this going in, and it was good to inform myself of the situations and see that others feel a similar way to me. I enjoyed reading this and would recommend it to anyone looking to know more about the medical field’s approach to autism throughout history.