Reviews for ADHD and Me: What I Learned from Lighting Fires at the Dinner Table

The average rating for ADHD and Me: What I Learned from Lighting Fires at the Dinner Table based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-04-12 00:00:00 Marcie Davis Wow! Just reading the other reviews of this book reminds me forcibly of just how misunderstood ADHD remains. I have a nearly 14-year old son with ADHD. He is light on the "H" (hyperactivity), so while there is no way that he would ever have needed to be tied to chair for dinner or set fires at the table, there is still much is in this book that is true of my son. The great thing about this book is that it is a personal story of a real person, a real person just out of childhood, and a real person who has found ways to successfully deal with his disorder. Personal stories reach us in a way that clinical examples cannot reach. Each chapter of this book describes a particular event in his life and how it is an example of an ADHD problem. Then he goes on to highlight why this event was a problem for him, and also ways in which someone with ADHD might avoid the consequences of these events. I will be giving it to my son to read this summer, primarily for the examples of ways in which Blake learned to deal with his problems. About the only thing I had a problem with is the second to last chapter in the book, in which he describes his transformation into the new and improved Blake which included a new wardrobe from The Gap. That bit of shopping commercialism and image consciousness seemed over the top a bit.

Review # 2 was written on 2020-05-04 00:00:00 Charles Khouw This is okay, if you read it as a memoir written by a young man with a privileged upbringing who happens to have ADHD, and not as a solutions guide. Its descriptions of ADHD ring relatively true to what I know, but because of the author's privilege and youth, and the ways in which both showed through his writing at all times, I didn't particularly trust his research. There were also a couple of huge errors that affected my impression of his reliability. And, as others have said, his suggestions are sweet and well-meant, but not accessible to, I dare say, most people in this world with ADHD.