ABSTRACT
When writers create books, they have their readers in mind. A good book will be written for well-imagined readers, a bad book will talk only to the writer, leaving the reader to peer in from the outside. The author recorded the experience after being confirmed as autistic into a neat map in this book. The experience is compared to stages of grief outlined for people who have experienced a bereavement, or the steps to recovery detailed for those who are confronting addiction. The author was worried that using the experiences as material could come across as an indulgent act of navel gazing, and fall on the wrong side of the distinction between good book and bad one. The chapter is concluded by showing that whilst there is certainly common ground, the experience of that common ground is always individual.
