Customer Reviews

Nobody Nowhere

5 star:		(31)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Donna Williams' Nobody Nowhere is the Rosetta stone of autism. The author is an autistic herself, and her autobiography gives you a very good idea of what it would be like to be in her skin. She gives plausible explanations for common autistic behaviors, and offers some fasincating hypotheses for causes and contributing factors for this syndrome. And she offers advice on how to communicate with an autistic person with respect and without overwhelming them.

This book is an invaluable resource for parents, siblings, and doctors of autistic people. But it has found a much wider audience, with good reason. Nobody Nowhere is a gripping tale, related in an honest and straightforward manner. It is the story of one woman's triumph over what fate has handed her, and her determination to move beyond her handicaps. You cannot help but be moved by her story, and inspired by her courage and determination.

In "Nobody Nowhere", Donna Williams details what it is like to grow up autistic and the price one pays for being "high-functioning." She describes sensory experiences like overload and seeing floating spots and wisps in the air. She also describes the "faces" she had to put on in order to relate to the world. This book made my whole life up to this point make sense for the first time. I had not known that many of these sensory experiences were different from those of other people. This is a very important book, both for people who have autism and related problems and for those who know them or might meet them.

I am the grandparent of an autistic child and found this book so helpful I would recommend that it be made mandatory reading for all professionals who work with autistic persons. I would also strongly urge all others who have autistic persons in their lives to read it. The book has given me insight regarding my grandson's behavior and suggestions of ways to help him. Until experts and their research can provide explanations and perhaps cures for autism, the lived experience of an autistic person, such as Donna Williams provides in her books, is the best help available for those of us who care about and relate to an autistic person.

I read Ms. Williams words with a hunger for understanding unlike anything I have felt. My grandaughter has autism, and I appreciate her letting me step into her world so I am able to comprehend my grandaughters behavoir. She has been diagnosed as mildly autistic. I have tried to believe that when she disappears from all that is around her with a far away gaze that the place she goes is a peaceful and comforing time for her. Unfortunetly, Ms. Williams portrays such torture, both physically and mentally, that I have to believe the constant fear she felt was due to the abuse she recived as a child. I need to at least have hope that if the home is nurturing and loving "her world" would have been more peaceful, and the little girl I love so much does not feel the pain and lonliness Ms. Williams felt. I have ordered her next book and am trying to believe she found some sort of peace and happiness, even if it is still somewhat in her own world. If not, please write another book Ms. Williams to tell us not just what is happening to your mind, but how we can help.

I found Donna's book fascinating, but less about autism than about surviving severe childhood abuse and neglect. Many of her lifelong struggles relate more to mental illness than autism, though the two are intimately intertwined. Because of this, I would not recommend this to families of children with autism as the first book to read in learning about autism.

For a few pages at the end of the book, Donna does offer some insightful and practical suggestions for interacting with and teaching children who are autistic, specifically addressing issues surrounding eye contact, touch and how to communicate without talking.

Don't get me wrong - I couldn't put the book down! But it just had more of a "Sybil" flavor than a Temple Grandin flavor. I did learn a bit about autism, but I learned a great deal more about surviving childhood abuse and mentall illness.

This book was amazing! I was floored by the look inside of the author's life. While I realize autisum take various forms within persons, this was an eye-opener to me. At the time I read this book I was working with an Autistic teenager, and it altered my view and perception of what she was going through. I hope it made me more compassionate. I do believe it helped us to communicate better and have a better understanding of each other.
Simply wonderful!

First of all, I'd like to tell you that I have not read a book cover to cover in over 7 years before now. I am graduate student studying Elementary Education and taking a special education course. We had to choose a book, read it, and review it. I have got to say that this book caught my attention from the very beginning and held it until the very end. Donna Williams' life reads like a fictional story. It's hard to believe that Ms. Williams endured an abusive family life, graduated from college, and traveled the world while searching for the reasons why she was different. I truly enjoyed this book and have already purchased her second book, Somebody Somewhere. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in autism, autobiographies, or just enjoys reading a wonderfully written book.

I think Donna Williams is one of the world's greatest authors. Although she suffers from pervasive developmental disorder, (autism related), she has shown great courage and will be of great benefit in the future for other people with disabilities.

I suffer, myself, from Asperger's Syndrome (I am 23 years old) and I have benefited from Donna's three autobiographies written.

I am trying hard to find information and correspondence with other autistic people like myself; but the process has not been a walover. I recommend reading of the books, from "Nobody Nowhere"(first) to "Like Color to the Blind" (third) because all three books run in sequence.

I have rated Nobody Nowhere a perfect 10!

Adrian Pooley

I found this book to be a step-by-step walk through interactions that I took comfortably for granted that I now realize can be hurtful and agonizing for someone with autism. The simple gester of a reasuring touch can take on a different meaning for an autistic. Yet William's ability to place "touch" under a microscope and explain it from her own perpective is in a word: brilliance. Williams took great pains to relate this book. I consider it to be groundbreaking.

Well, if you want to get more of an idea of autism, where better than from the autobiography of an autistic woman?

This was partly why I started reading this book, having contact with some kids with autism, and also being aware that it's not an `either/or' dichotomy: all of us are somewhere on a long continuum. However along the way there was so much wild trauma going on with Williams' abusive family and multiple personalities it became very difficult to distinguish what in her life was a result of her autism and what was a refection of circumstances or other complicating psychological conditions. I will be curious to see if there are any Amazon reviews written by autistics and how they reacted. I wouldn't be surprised if, while they are glad to see awareness raised, many would be dismayed to think Donna came to represent a popular image of what autistic people are like (cf. the deaf community dealing with Peter Goldsworthy's Wish).

As a foil, I was quite impressed by Mark Haddon's 'The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time', both as an insight into the world of a lead character who is autistic and as a decent fictional story in it's own right. Nobody Nowhere is trying to do something entirely different, although it also has a narrator who's not entirely self-aware. I also note that at least one autistic guy gave enthusiastic praise that one of us `neuro-normals' had got it so right. Still, Haddon's lead character, while having a family with its own difficulties, has nothing on Donna's nightmare.

I suppose the really tricky part for me in this review is that after a while I really got to a point of disliking Donna. A dangerous thing to say: "A-ha - he doesn't like an autistic girl - he must be a bigot." Well, I hope not, and on further reflection I suspect not. Indeed, it's more bigoted to say, "That person is autistic, I must, therefore, like them." Like that nasty self-deceptive patronising racism that says something like, "I just love Mexicans - they're so cute. I love their funny hats and have a couple of CDs of that wonderful guitar music." Donna, like a lot of us, has her problems, many of which are not her own fault. However, we do get shaped by our circumstances, and not always in positive ways - not always in ways that make us good company. So much of Donna's self analysis I found pretty dubious: hey, I don't always understand why I act the way I do - I'm pretty sure that neither does Donna. Sure it's interesting, indeed, primary, to hear her perspective (and you really sympathise with her trying to make sense, to find some explanation for her personal history) - but I found myself often unconvinced.

Particularly hard going were the ubiquitous contradictory actions along the lines of, "I really liked this guy, he was so considerate and I wanted desperately to be with him - so I abused him and forced him to leave." Moreover there is a real contempt for, well, most other people. They can make all sorts of efforts to reach out to Donna, to allow for her, while she treats them horribly, but somehow they are always seen to be at fault:

"I found that people were usually blinded by their own insecurities or egotism or selfishness. People seemed so ignorant in their self-assured black and white conception of `normality'. Every so often, however, someone would wonder whether others had something to learn from me in trying to understand my differentness. Some people could sense the courage it took to teach myself so many things like the music I wrote with such depth and passion."

But if you're looking for blindness stemming from insecurities, egotism or selfishness, strewth, Donna is there for you. Even in this excerpt she unabashedly talks of the depth and passion of her music, elsewhere she's clearly convinced of her intellectual superiority to just about anyone: say, for example, any university lecturer who doesn't recognise her genius.

So, sorry, somewhere around the above quote, about three-quarters of the way through the book I thought to myself: I don't think I'm learning anything much about autism here, and I really don't like hanging around with this confused, arrogant and often unpleasant woman. I bailed.