elouisedouglas's reviews
707 reviews

I first came across Fern Brady when watching Taskmaster last year and I instantly loved her and the way she approached the tasks. I found out after the show that she was autistic and that the show had been a freeing and welcoming experience for her. 

What I didn’t realise until I listened to this book is how hard Fern’s life has been up to now. Her autobiography, narrated by herself in audiobook form, dives right into her life with no nice rosy filter applied. 

From her time at school in a secure unit, to her self harm and suicide attempts, to her time working in a strip club at university, Fern lets us into her life and how the world isn’t set up for autistic people, and specifically for autistic women, who find it particularly hard to be diagnosed. 

I wouldn’t say this was as easy read in any way, so you need to be prepared before going in, but it was enlightening and definitely worth reading/listening to, in order to get a perspective of how life can be so much harder for someone who is neurodiverse. 

Like I assume a lot of people, I had initially judged Rylan by the persona he out on during the X factor, but over the years I have warmed to him and I really love his show on Radio 2. 

This book was an insight to the man behind the Rylan character- did you know his name is actually Ross?! 

He’s had a really tough couple of years and the book opens with his darkest times - he laid it all on the table making himself very vulnerable and I could feel every emotion - made more intense by Rylan reading the audio book himself. 

After a heavy start, it does get lighter and there are some really interesting stories from the last ten years of his career. 

I thought this was fab, a great insight into his life - there were just a couple of chapters that I found a bit meh which is why I haven’t given five stars. 

This book had lots of great tips about how to use conversation to make your work and personal life more successful. 

It was filled with personal anecdotes and real world examples of where the practices have been used which I appreciated. 

Some of the material didn’t feel as timely for me and I felt less engaged than in those parts but I can imagine needing them in the future and this being a book I might dip back into. 

I’ve read genesis many times (in part due to my many failed attempts to read the bible in a year which always start at genesis).

However, I’ve never read Abraham’s story through the lens of lent and Easter and this book unlocked a lot of things that I’d never considered before. 

I loved the personal stories weaved through it and the constant encouragements to relate Abraham’s journey to your own personal journey and the reflection questions were great. 

I bought this book ages ago in a cathedral we visited and by the time I started reading it I couldn’t remember why I’d bought a book called ‘what is the bible?’

So I had no idea what to expect going in, only that something about it caught my eye. From the first chapter I was hooked (and also surprised). The first chapter about Moses was like ‘oh okay, this is not the normal kind of bible study book!’

Digging into the real meaning behind specific or obscure passages I absolutely loved how the author made everything so accessible and easy to read, and fun too. 

I would definitely recommend this book, especially if you’ve read and struggled with certain parts of the bible before. 

I read this book as a child and I seem to recall that I loved it, but this re-read just didn’t bring back that childlike joy. 

I just didn’t feel any connection to the animal characters and some of the chapters just really seemed to drag on - the toad ones were very exciting but many other times I found myself just wanting to get through it. 

Isn’t this the love story we’ve all dreamed of at some point on our miserable commute? You meet the love of your life right there?

I loved this book, it was so teasing with the ‘will they finally meet, oh not yet’ constantly weaved through the book. It was so infuriating to be able to see the story from both their perspectives and see how close they kept coming. 

But the slow burn was worth it because the ending was just fab. 

I did find the book a little slow to get into to start with which is the only reason I haven’t gone full 5 stars, but after about 50 pages I just didn’t want to put it down! 

I found this book absolutely fascinating. 

I play a few video games but I wouldn’t necessarily label myself a gamer, but I loved the amount of passion about gaming that came through from the author. 

Part history of video gaming, part deep dive into video game research and part memoir of the authors experience of gaming, including some incredibly touching stories about the loss of his father, I enjoyed this way more than I had originally anticipated. 

Every chapter had been well thought out and rather than being a one sided defence of gaming, was presented in a very balanced way and making clear the flaws in the research presented. 

If you like gaming, or even just tech in general, or even just human behaviour, then I think you’d find this book very informative. 

Oh reading this again was such a joy, it was my favourite book as a child and my copy has been very well loved. 

I still loved the characters and the stories and the little poems and of course the beautiful illustrations. 

I just didn’t get on with the audio version of this book, I found it very hard to concentrate on. If I could find it in paperback I’m sure I’d enjoy it more.