I wish I could remember where I came across this book, because I owe the person who mentioned it to me a huge thank you. I’d never heard of Fern Brady before reading this book, but apparently she’s a well known Scottish comedian. This book, however, isn’t all fun and giggles, because it’s not meant to be. It’s not a collection of her comedic works, it’s a memoir of the things she has struggled with looked at through the lens of an adult autism diagnosis. Clearly this is right up my street having been recently diagnosed with ADHD as an adult myself, so the rollercoaster of having all the things that you could never understand suddenly made sense of when you’re well into adulthood is one I’m quite familiar with. I like reading books about people – usually women – who are experiencing something similar because it’s nice to see my own experiences (or some like them) in black and white.
I enjoyed Brady’s willingness to share (what seems like) everything she’s dealt with – from feeling like she doesn’t understand other people to breaking her house when she’s unable to control her emotions to how difficult it can be to find a place in the world to belong and how difficult relationships can be when there’s something different about your brain. Especially when you don’t know it. It’s been a while since I read this book, and I read it around the same time as another book by a comedian who was late diagnosed with ADHD, so honestly the details have blurred a little bit (thanks ADHD for not letting me write this review in an appropriate time frame). I can’t tell you exactly what she shares, but I can tell you that it left me feeling so many feelings. I felt sad for her that she had dealt with so much that was difficult – and, often, unnecessarily so. I felt anger at how the world made her feel like there was something wrong with her rather than offering help. I felt recognition because of my own experiences. And, many times, I laughed. I loved the writing as much as the content, and I also appreciated that she both shared openly and acknowledged the down sides of doing so. It’s not easy to show the world who you really are, but when you do I’d like to think other people will share in return.
I imagine this is one of the books I’ll read again in the future, because while the details are a bit fuzzy, the way it made me feel is crystal clear. I loved sharing time with Brady, and I loved hearing her story. It’s a hard one, but it’s also an honest one that shares what it’s like to inhabit a brain that’s very different to the ones most people around you are hanging out in. It shows the struggles and the confusion, the self-doubt and the frustration, but it also shows the process of learning who you really are and beginning to accept that truth out loud. I admire her for writing this book, and I (along with many other neurodivergent people who didn’t know they were) am grateful she shared so that we can feel less alone. A great book for anyone to read, but particularly anyone who has had a similar experience.
INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER • “Witty, dry, and gimlet-eyed, this is a necessary corrective in a world where Autistic women are all either written off as quiet and docile, or erased entirely.” —Devon Price, Ph.D., author of Unmasking Autism
Scottish comedian Fern Brady was told she couldn’t be autistic because she’d had loads of boyfriends and is good at eye contact. In this frank and surreal memoir, she delivers a sharp and often hilarious portrait of neurodivergence and living unmasked.
After reading about autism in her teens, Fern Brady knew instinctively that she had it—autism explained her sensory issues, her meltdowns, her inability to pick up on social cues—and she told her doctor as much. But it took until she was thirty-four for her to get diagnosed.
Strong Female Character is about the years in between, and the unique combination of sexism and ableism that so often prevents autistic women from getting diagnosed until adulthood. Coming from a working-class Scottish Catholic family, Fern wasn’t exactly poised to receive an open-minded acceptance of her neurodivergence. With the piercing clarity and wit that has put her at the top of the British comedy scene, she now reflects on the ways her undiagnosed autism influenced her youth, from the tree that functioned as her childhood best friend to the psychiatric facility where she ended up when neither her parents nor school knew what to do with her.
In a memoir as hilarious as it is heartbreaking, Fern leaves no stone unturned while detailing her futile attempts at employment, her increasingly destructive coping mechanisms, and the meltdowns that left her mind (and apartment) in ruins. Her chaotic, nonlinear journey—from stripping to getting arrested to finding a lifeline in comedy to her breakout appearance on the Taskmaster TV show as her full, unmasked self—is both a remarkable coming-of-age tale and a dark but poignant tribute to life at the intersection of womanhood and neurodiversity.
Strong Female Character is a story of how being female can get in the way of being autistic and how being autistic gets in the way of being the ‘right kind’ of woman. – Goodreads
Book Title: Strong Female Character
Author: Fern Brady
Series: No
Edition: Audiobook
Published By: Harmony
Released: February 14, 2023
Genre: Non-Fiction, Memoir, Autism, Neurodivergence
Pages: 288
Date Read: August 29, 2024
Rating: 8/10
Average Goodreads Rating: 4.47/5 (28,031 ratings)