a refreshing exploration of neurodiversity, offering valuable insights into the lived experiences of individuals who do not fit societal norms. Wharmby challenges stereotypes and sheds light on the unique strengths and challenges faced by neurodivergent individuals. His writing is engaging and accessible. Wharmby's empathy and expertise shine through, offering hope and validation to neurodivergent individuals everywhere.

Great work once more Pete - a lot of what you say is resonating with me a lot more than I expected! Having known Pete from teacher training, it is awesome to see how far he has come and how much he has to share on this topic.

There are many memoirs, accounts of lives lived with autism. Many of them are brilliant descriptions of living In a world that is not made with you in mind.

However, this is the first, that I have come across, that makes practical suggestions for making the world more friendly for autistic (neurodivergent) individuals, making it an important addition to this area of writing. In addition, many of these adjustments would be helpful to other disabled people. I highly recommend this book.

Thanks to NetGalley and HarperCollins for the ARC!

This is a fantastic book that calls you out and pulls you in simultaneously. It allows you to appreciate the world through the lens of someone with autism and gives unfiltered advice that was insightful and resonated with me. I would recommend this read to anyone, but in particular I think it should be a must-read for anyone that is an HR professional, teacher or occupational therapist.

This is a brilliant non-fiction book that I raced through. As someone who works in a primary school with children with autism and other disabilities, I am always eager to educate myself further in order to hopefully do my job better. Although, I feel well versed on autism this was still super informative and engaging. I like how the book was structured. There were chapters covering work, school and exhaustion.

I highly recommend that everyone read this book.

Fantastic - enlightening, eye opening, and hugely important. Brought copies for my parents as it's a book I want to share with those who can use it to understand a bit more

This was a fast and enormously interesting read for me. I learned about attention tunnels, Pathological Demand Avoidance, special interests, and so much more. The way Pete condenses everything he writes into summary points was particularly handy.
I hope this book will go a long way towards the kind of world autistic people deserve.

The author quotes statistics suggesting that up to 1 in 20 of us could be autistic, and yet "the world is a hostile, terrifying place for autistic people everywhere", highlighting why books like this are so important, both for autistics and everyone who interacts with them (i.e. everyone).

I thought Wharmby did a really fantastic job of getting across his own experience of the world as a (late-diagnosed) autistic person, as well as sharing some of the many and varied experiences of autistics that he's interacted with since his diagnosis. There are many really sensible, and easy, suggestions for how individuals and society at large can make small changes that would help so very much for autistic people to get on with their lives as freely as neurotypicals expect to.

There were points in the book where I thought the author was getting a little lost in his own experience which felt a touch alienating - but this isn't a criticism per se, it's only to be expected in a book that has to be written so subjectively. Overall, this is such a well-paced, easily readable book that I think it has the potential to do wonders for bringing awareness and understanding.

This was a great and interesting read. I’ve recently been diagnosed with Autism and I’m 33 so this book helped a lot to understand myself and also tell my partner how to help in different situations too. What I loved about this book is that it was straight to to point, not too many boring facts or surveys and an easy relatable read for me. Thanks to the author for writing this book

As someone who has just been referred for an autism assessment, this book made me feel seen. It was fascinating, and I learned so much more about autism that I didn’t already know. It helped me join even more dots, pointing to the possibility of me being autistic. People are individuals and this book took that into account, discussing many aspects of how autism presents and the struggles faced. It was brilliantly written, engaging and eye opening, and felt like I was having a conversation with the author. It covered a lot of ground, and the organisation and structure were fantastic too, separated into logical parts that fitted together.

I already know how inaccessible the world is for people with autism, but this made me realise how bad it is and what we can do to change that. This book will open up people’s eyes to this and the challenges in life that come along with autism. There was also a good amount of psychology in the book and the authors’ points were backed up with it.

Overall, an insightful read and well worth a read, especially if you want to learn more about the autistic experience. Thank you to netgalley, the author and publisher, for a chance to read and review this book.

This is an informative and interesting book about being autistic in a hostile world. It is aimed at allistic (non-autistic) and neurotypical people, with helpful advice on how to be more autism-friendly. Wharmby covers areas of life such as school, the workplace, and relationships, recounting his own experiences and providing a guide on how autistic people can struggle to cope and what can be done to accommodate them.

Wharmby presents a vision of a society that is more accepting of neurodivergence. The main message of the book is one of compassion: that having compassion for the autistic people in your life will make things easier for them and help them be understood. He frequently returns to this idea as a guiding principle when explaining how to accommodate autistic people’s needs.

As an autistic person, I really appreciated the chapter on the ‘spiky profile’. Of the models used to describe autism, this is one of my favourites and I felt Wharmby explained it very well.

What I felt would be beneficial is a deeper look at how everyone, autistic and allistic, would benefit from a world that is more accepting and understanding of autism. Also, I would have appreciated a deeper look at how societal institutions are set up to be harmful to autistic people. For instance, Wharmby acknowledges the increased risk that Black people face from the police, which made me think about how this is a deliberate effect of an inherently ableist and racist institution designed to discipline disabled and racialised people. The police are hostile to autistic people, especially Black autistic people, on purpose: this will not be solved by training or awareness.

Overall, ‘Untypical’ is an insightful look at the challenges autistic people face in modern Britain. I found myself wishing that my teachers had read a book like this when I was in school, and so I would highly recommend this to everyone, but especially people working in education.

This book was different to the usual non-fiction book which centres around autism. I myself have autism and ADHD so i found it refreshing to read another autistics persons take on how they viewed the world.
There was a few times i laughed as i resonated with the content and i finished the book feeling like i had a better understanding of myself as well as my daughters.

Pete has taken the time to really understand his diagnosis and what makes him different from a typical person. There was quite a few times and examples that Pete used about his autism where i have never made the link and i just thought everyone did those things. I discussed this with my husband. and it was a great way for us to discuss all my little quirks.

This is a great book for someone with a family member or friend who has been diagnosed with autism to give them a slight insight into some aspects of autism. Autism is on such a wide spectrum that it can not be applied to every diagnosis.
It would also be a good read for any teacher, childminder etc to get a different perspective on autism rather than the usual books that you see on the shelf.

The writing style is very engaging. The author is clearly aware of current discussions and debates, but the writing is very accessible and easy to read.
It's almost a manifesto - it could be read alongside Beardon's 'Avoiding anxiety in autistic adults' which also has ideas for how to change environments to make them less distressing for autistic people.
Obviously it's one person's experiences and opinions, but they are contextualised by current societal issues relating to autistic people more generally.
It's intended as a way to explain autistic experience to neurotypical people, so I hope they read it too, and that it makes them think.

A wonderful book about achieving better awareness.
Written with some humour. I was left feeling everyone should read this, some kindness in the world would make it a better place to live.
Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for my early copy.
The world isn't built for autistic people but autism isn't going anywhere.