Spotify's recent expansion into audiobooks finally tempted me to properly listen to one, and Fern Brady's memoir popped up and seemed like a good place to start. Strong Female Character hinges on Fern's very late diagnoses of Autism, in her mid-30s, and then looks back over her childhood and young adulthood as she experiences symptoms which are either ignored, explained away or treated as a symptom of something else.

This is a memoir that has left me thinking about it for days after I finished listening to it. I think Autism is still incredibly poorly understood, and Brady does a great job at effectively bringing her experience vividly to the page (and audio). Obviously one person's experience isn't necessarily indicative of every young woman with ASD's, but I appreciated how unflinching Brady was in sharing her experiences, and ultimately the insights from her therapist when she is finally able to find a healthcare professional who recognises and appropriately treats her symptoms.

The book also covers Brady's experience growing up in working class Scotland, and how she looked to both literature & education and then stand-up comedy as ways to get herself out of this environment. She reflects on the gender dynamics at play in her home community which I found interesting, as were her insights into the still very male-dominated comedy circuit.

The only aspect of the memoir that I didn't always jive with was that it often felt like the women in Brady's life receive far greater criticism than the men - including men who quite literally try to kill her. I'm not sure if this comes from a sense of women should be supporting women; and Brady sometimes makes some compelling points about gender dynamics, but a lot of this seems to be dismissed at an individual level. I would have liked a little more nuance her, but I can also understand that Brady was let down by a lot of women in positions of hierarchy and power as she grew up.

On the whole though this is a really great memoir, and would recommend listening to it on audio to get the full experience. It's one I'll definitely be thinking about.