Moira's Reviews > Far from the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity

I would like to read what you have to say, but I'm not clicking on that link to your blog (you should just post it on here rather than driving traffic to your website).

I think the idea is to acknowledge that no book can do justice to the supreme difficulties and complexities of being a parent to a special needs child, but that this is not a reason to turn away. If nothing else, we would see the parallels between our own lives and those we consider to be outside of our circle of reference.

Isn't Steven being a bit...priggish and/or didactic about this? I would TOTALLY click on the link to read a Moira Russell review, because I know she'll be both compassionate and fiercely astute (I just can't because I'm in the hospital and most websites deemed "social media" are blocked--not sure how GR slipped through the cracks).

So if I got it right, one of yours main critics is that the themes of the book are way to vast to fit in couple of hundreds of pages. Yes, you are right, every one of these subjects can, and have filled many books on its own. And then if you open those books, you will find sub-themes that can fit many books on its own. That can go on for awhile. Zooming in towards the details can be just as bottomless and infinite as zooming out of the universe.
I don't think the author aimed or claimed to have covered the subject of rape, crime, autism or parenthood. That would be crazy! Talking only when we can cover the entire subject, though, will keep all of us quiet.
Another critic I hear is that these are way to different and incomparable themes. Nobody denies they are different! It is painfully obvious that a parent of an autistic child is very different from the mother of a prodigy. What I've taken from the book though, is the new prespective, the idea that in some ways, in some almost invisible aspects, they are quite similar. And one can disagree with that of course, but I don't think that makes the book worthless. Quite the opposite, it means it will make me entertain a new idea, that didn't occur to me before.

About the tearful dramatic part of the book, well if it's not your style, it's not your style! The worth of a book is not measured by that if everybody shed the same amount of tears on the same paragraph! I personally find the emotional part handled with moderation and appropriately. I don't think it was over the top, but then again, this is very much a personal preference.
What I think you've got wrong though is the way you proclaim yourself, almost proudly, a "heartless bitch". You don't sound a heartless bitch in this post, you sound angry and resentful.

COme see my blog?

Uhhh...no...

Every time another person suggests I read this book I just read your review instead, which sounds exactly like a review I'd write and for the same reasons, and so I don't read the book. Thanks for the hours back in to my life for reading other things!

I appreciated your review, though I didn't have quite the same reaction. You make excellent points that I'll think about.