Autistic World Domination

When Jolene Stockman writes of Autistic World Domination she is encouraging autistics to dominate and take control of their own inner worlds. Let me start off my review by saying that I love this book. Really, truly, genuinely love it. As a neurodiversity-affirming therapist, this is a book I know is needed. It reads like a manifesto of love and support to autistics and a guidebook on how to embrace the truth of who you are and HOW you are in order to live a fulfilled and meaningful life.

Jolene Stockman is an autistic author who was diagnosed as an adult. She states that she was diagnosed long after she was able to change the direction of her life but at the perfect time to shift the way she saw it. This is important to note about her self-possession journey because she writes this book as both memoir and roadmap to folks learning to embrace their disability, their strengths, and uniqueness.

At many points in this book, Stockman makes the argument for how neurodiversity is making the world a richer place- a more creative place. We are all better off embracing and respecting different neurotypes because there is much to offer and understand beyond neurotypical ways of fitting in and masking. Masking comes at a great cost to the autistic community and Stockman really wants everyone to think about this for themselves and consider how to life live being the most authentic, best version of you possible. She provides tools, guided questions, and reflections to help readers think about what living authentically could look like for them on their individual journeys and life paths regarding love, life, friendship, career, and self-actualization.

Thank you to the author and publisher for the e-arc copy!

Autistic children grow up to be autistic adults, and many adults are also being diagnosed with autism later in life. Despite this, books for and about autistic adults remain rare. Autistic World Domination is the most comprehensive and positive book I've seen written for an autistic adult audience. Jolene Stockman, an autistic adult herself, walks the reader through a ten step plan to world domination, aka living one's best autistic life. She explains the roots of many difficulties autistic people face when interacting with the world, offering suggestions for ways to adapt environments and relationships to meet readers' needs. Even more helpfully (and hopefully), Stockman helps the reader to reframe sensitivities as strengths, set goals, and develop the systems that will bring them to fruition. Stockman's Maori heritage affords her a unique perspective on neurodivergence that needs to be shared with the wider world. A must-buy for every library collection.

This book is great!! As a more recently diagnosed autistic adult, this book, written by an autistic author, Jolene Stockman, is filled with great guidance on how to navigate, thrive, and - dare I say - dominate as a neurodivergent person in a neurotypical world.

All of the advice bestowed by the author is enhanced by her reflections as an autistic person, including first being diagnosed, and then navigating through sharing it with the world.

Jolene's reframing of autism as a superpower, as a tool for success, is so refreshing. A number of books I've read about autism and for autistic adults, have really focused on the downsides, whereas this book is so optimistic (as evidenced by the liberal use of exclamation marks, which I enjoy. :) )

One sentence that really strikes home the message of the book: "You deserve to be here because you were born." That is so powerful to read. Being constantly told or made to feel that I am "too much" or "not enough" or something is "wrong" with me really breaks down my spirit. But by focusing on the fact that simply being a person is enough to make me valuable, and deserve to belong, well, that's just lovely.

The author includes activities, or blueprints, throughout the book for readers to complete. I chose to read through the book in its entirety without doing the activities, but I will go back and complete them because, after reading about them, I think they will be really beneficial for me.

I think this book would be a good read for adult autistic people, especially those diagnosed as adults, those who think they may be autistic, and also for people who love, know, or work with autistic people.

I am a word origin geek, so this book had me from the explanation of the meaning of domination in this context - 'to master ourselves, our spaces and to make the world our home'.
It's really nice to see autisticness framed as a positive thing, set within a framework of neurodivergence. This book has personal experience, guidance and information.
I think this book would work well for young adults and teenagers who often struggle to acknowledge their autistic identity, but it's also very affirming if you were diagnosed as an adult, like Jolene and also myself.
The activities are helpful - things like listing three ways you can relax - a manageable amount, and specific.
This relates to the later section on setting SMART goals, which is useful if you haven't come across it before.
There's a bit on language, and a discussion of the Maori way to describe an autistic person, which is really lovely.
This is then linked to how negative descriptions of autism often are, and then another practical activity - reframing the way you describe yourself.
The book has political awareness but is chiefly about self and community acceptance and celebration, and it's really lovely to read.
I love the 'scenes' that ground the narrative in vignettes of experience.

I am not myself autistic but have someone close to be who is and also often work with people who are. This is a great book I think especially for those trying to make sense of what it means to them to be autistic and although I can not personally comment on any benefit I am sure it has great potential to help folks.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I found this book very helpful and informative.