Review: “Anders gaat ook” by Elise Cordaro
When you start to read book by autistics about autism, you get the memoir format a lot. After a while it gets tedious to read these books and it’s difficult to get information that you haven’t already read in some other format or sentence structure before. Elise’s book is different. It was a fresh breath of air to read something like this, after having read a lot of other books.
This book is not written by a professional or expert, but by an autistic themselves, so although memoirs are tedious to read, I still recommend those over any book by a professional. Elise became known in Belgium, where is also from, thanks to the tv show Taboe, where she and other autistics came together to be on a show framed around their autism and how it is to be autistic. It was a genuine delight to watch it (sadly only in Dutch), Portrayals like this in the media are rare and with all the care that went into it, thanks to Elise’s Instagram where she talks about behind the scenes stuff, it warms my cynical heart.
The book itself is written in a conversational tone and are actually reformatted blogposts, it’s noticeable, but it’s not bad in this case, as it’s a pleasure to read. The book reads like a train, as it’s written by an autistic-adhd’er, and actually geared towards an autistic-adhd audience.
She talks openly about her life as an autistic-adhd’er but that’s not the complete focus of the book. What makes this book a pleasure to read, is that next to the difficulties Elise has in everyday life, they also present you with practical examples and tips on how she survives having a job and living her everyday life.
I recognize certain things from my own life and on other examples I would do things differently and could give examples on why and how I do it differently so it helps me reflect on my own growth and unconscious processes I do to survive everyday life.
The book like many other autistic memoirs is not a “woe me” type of book. It’s an uplifting book that even though she talks about the things she has difficulties with, like her sleep schedule, you notice that she doesn’t leave it at that and searchers for solutions. Even before her diagnose, and the reason why I bought the book, she noticed she was different and that didn’t stop her from getting higher degrees, which I am going to do in September 2022 myself, so I could use tips by an autistic-adhd’er and she explains her thought-process that she used to get her degrees, which are immensely helpful.
If you are Dutch-speaking and are looking for an awesome book on autism and ADHD, read this book. You can’t get better than information from an autistic-adhd’er themselves.
