This book only covers about a year in the lives of the families, so we don't see much improvement of the children. In some ways I felt like this book was much more about the family caregivers. There was discussion of several different books and treatments. The dialogue seemed a bit stilted, but it mostly worked. Each family chose a different treatment, except two. The therapist working with those two families was working with each of them differently.

But as I said, I think this book is about the family caregivers. One mother lost her job, the husband of one of the women had an affair with another woman in the group, who was then ostracized. She wasn't brought back in until something went wrong with a treatment. Another couple broke up because the husband was pursuing a different path than his wife was comfortable with.

These are chick lit/women's fiction books, so men don't play very big roles. .I'm sure there are more families that get strong support from the husbands and help their children as a team. The stats do say that many families break up, and I believe that since this author has an autistic child, she definitely wrote from an "inside" perspective. She knew exactly what she was talking about. ( )

Hannah Brown is a fabulous story-teller. It takes great talent to weave four stands of people's lives into a coherent whole, while maintaining each character's distinctive voice, but that is exactly what she does.

While the story line itself entertains, even including the modern requisites of sex and violence, there's way more going on here than in a typical novel. Brown presents the mystery and reality of autism, which binds together the characters in this story. By the book's end, the reader will have a deeper appreciation of what parents of autistic children must face on a day-to-day basis. While the readers' knowledge of this disorder is enhanced, it is made much more interesting by the entertaining quality of the story.

Hannah Brown is to be commended to educating readers while telling a great story- or is it vice-versa? ( )