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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.
Finalist for the Porchlight Business Book Award • A Harper’s Bazaar Best Book of the Year
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.©2023 Fern Brady (P)2023 Random House Audio
Initial Thoughts:
Like most people I became aware of Fern Brady after seeing her on the British show “Taskmasker”. She was awesome on it and really funny so when I saw she had a book on Audible (and it was narrated by her) I decided to give it a listen.
Main Points:
This book was something of a surprise, which is due to the fact that I only skimmed over the description, in that it is mostly serious/educational look at Fern’s lifelong struggle with autism and how it often presents in women. As someone who has autistic tendencies (but was never diagnosed) I really enjoyed all the information she presents and found myself relating to much of what she says. If Fern read this review, which I’d love, I want to be clear, I am only making the smallest of connections as you’ll see when you read/listen to this book how much she struggled and suffered through her life, anything I went through pales in comparison.
This book was different from a lot of memoirs in that it starts closer to the present and give you an idea of the struggles Fern goes through as an autistic women in our modern world (and the entertainment industry). Then she goes back to her childhood and there are many parts which are difficult to listen to only because you feel so bad for her, being picked on my other children, taken advantage of by adults (including a disturbing sex weekend with a married couple and the woman was a cop!), being put in an institution, continually kicked out of the house by her parents, insulted by a woman at a party and the hardest part of the book to listen to, physically assaulted and nearly killed by her boyfriend at the time, just to give you a few. Through all of this, however, you see how brave, intelligent, strong and resourceful she is and it is wonderful to see how eventually she gets the help she needs and figures out how to deal with being autistic through trial and error, along with careful monitoring of her progress. Parts of the book are hilarious and her dry humor is the kind I often enjoy. It was also great to hear her talk so openly about being an exotic dancer, to be clear she had some terrible experiences there as well, as I think sex is something that is so important to being human that when it’s celebrated it can be a wonderful thing. I also found her views on sex, and her sex positive attitude, to be a breath of fresh air and I agree with her fully, if you love sex and want to have it often (with more than one person) then you should, life is too short to not be happy.
Final Thoughts:
This is an excellent book that I really enjoyed. Towards the end Fern recounts a touching moment where her and her mom reconcile and I enjoyed how she ends on a, mostly, positive note. Her bravery in being so honest about what she has gone through and how she finds happiness in the world is wonderful and I applaud her for it. Thank you for being so honest about autism and wanting to help and educate people on this topic and in trying to change how the world views people on the spectrum. I agree that people have terrible assumptions about autism and this has lead to some heartbreaking tragedies that could have been easily avoided, hopefully with this book a few more will be. I hope your comedy comes to my home, Newfoundland, some day, I think you would like it here. I give this a very solid 8.5 out of 10. My only real issue is that I wanted to hear a lot more about her experience on Taskmaster and stories from being the entertainment/comedy industry, though I understand that was not the focus of this book. This is certainly not for children, due to mature subject matter (and some coarse language) I would say ages 18+. I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in autism who is not triggered by thoughts of suicide, violence and abuse. Give it a listen (or a read), you’ll be glad you did.