I’m slightly mad about this book, if I’m honest. And the reason why is because if/when I ever got around to writing a book about autism, it would have been this one. It may not have been as good, as funny, or as insightful, but this book is essentially what I’d have been aiming for, when I got around to it.
But comedian Pierre Novellie beat me to it. And he did a really good job, so now I guess I don’t need to. It’s not that I need another book to be writing – if anything, he did me a favour. But still, the bastard.
Why Can’t I Just Enjoy Things, as you may have surmised, is my kind of autism book. I find a lot of them are very shallow reads that skim over the surface and don’t really get into the detail. This seems to be the case of some of the ones written by autistic content creators, and they come across more as having been created because someone needed a ‘product’ to sell to their audience.
Why Can’t I Just Enjoy Things, however, is the opposite of that. It’s book-length, for a start, it’s funny, it’s in-depth and it’s well researched. There are footnotes! Citations! Links to actual scientific studies! No one book could cover everything there is to say about autism (no one perspective could ever do that, either), but this is a comprehensive exploration of the strengths, challenges, attitudes and experience of neurodiverse people.
It resonated with me all the more because there are a lot of similarities between myself and Novellie. He’s a professional comedian – I’m an amateur one (as in, too chicken to get back on stage, but prolific peddler of nonsense online and in meetings); neither of us has the big meltdown or shutdown in response to sensory stimuli kind of autism; both of us only got diagnosed in our thirties; both of us were thin and gained a lot of weight as the struggles of hidden neurodiversity piled up as adult life got underway; we even share a childhood obsession with the BBC radio comedy The Goon Show!
This is, naturally, partly autobiographical, but Novellie mixes this with in-depth research and understanding of the autistic condition, combined with wit you’d expect from a professional stand-up comedian.
A particular strength of this book is the way Novellie uses analogies to help neurotypical readers imagine the scenario or experience from an autistic point of view.
Why Can’t I Just Enjoy Things is a fun and enlightening look at autistic life, that perfectly balances the need to increase understanding and appreciation for our challenges and strengths with a level-headed awareness that sometimes we’re a little odd.
An essential read for late-diagnosed autistics, or anyone wanting to know more about them.
