Odd Girl Out: An Autistic Woman in a Neurotypical World by Laura James - Paperback Memoir - Autism in Women - Pan Macmillan

Details: Condition: BRAND NEW Format: Paperback ISBN: 9781509843824 Publisher: Pan Macmillan Overview: Odd Girl Out is Laura James's candid memoir of discovering she was autistic in her mid-forties, after a lifetime of feeling different without knowing why. Written with warmth, wit and honesty, it follows the year after her diagnosis as she re-examines her childhood, career, marriages and motherhood through a new lens. For readers curious about neurodiversity, women's autism experiences, or late-life diagnosis, this widely praised memoir offers a moving, eye-opening and hopeful read. About the Book: Laura James spent over forty years feeling like the odd one out — different, awkward, exhausted by a world that never quite made sense — without understanding why. Then, in her mid-forties, a definitive autism diagnosis changed everything. Odd Girl Out charts the year that followed: a year of reassessment, reflection and self-acceptance. James looks back at her childhood love of spinning in circles, her struggles reading social situations, sensory overload, and the elaborate masking that let her pass as neurotypical for decades. She examines how autism shaped her marriages, her career as a journalist, and raising four children, often while feeling like she was faking her way through motherhood. The memoir widens its lens too, exploring the chronic underdiagnosis of autism in women and its links to eating disorders and social pressure. Rather than a clinical account, this is a warm and often funny personal narrative that never loses sight of the emotional stakes of rewriting your self-understanding in midlife. James's message is hopeful: difference doesn't have to mean less, and it's never too late to find where you belong. An honest, first-person account of late-in-life autism diagnosis, ideal for readers exploring neurodiversity and self-identity. Explores the overlooked experience of autism in women, including masking and its links to eating disorders. Written by an ex