Episodes: My Life as I See It (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Episodes: My Life as I See It Karen Coats Ginsberg, Blaze. Episodes: My Life as I See It. Roaring Brook, 2009. 274p. ISBN 978-1-59643-461-5 $16.99 R Gr. 7-10 In this uniquely styled memoir, Blaze Ginsberg, a high-functioning autistic young adult, recounts his life experiences from his freshman year in high school through his first year in college as if they were a set of interconnected TV series. He uses the format of the Internet's famous movie database, the IMDb, listing dates covered in each series, genre, air dates, current status (ended, in syndication, continuing), cast members, and a series summary. Then, for each episode, he gives a title, plot summary, quotes, trivia, notes, and, sometimes, soundtrack listings. The ordinariness and repetition of Blaze's days and the banality of his crises are at times tedious in their realism, with an arc that seems more narrated than plotted, but there is craft here: rather than a simple chronology, Blaze has divided his life into meaningful thematic segments, such as his crush on Hilary Duff, which is given its own two-season series even though it overlaps other series timewise. He also highlights recurring themes, such as his desire for a trio of friends and a girlfriend. The later special episodes, including a ballet, give further shape to the memoir, exorcising longstanding disappointments and aggression through the kinds of overwrought plots one typically finds in such excursions. Throughout the memoir, the shape of Blaze as a person emerges: while he can't always keep his negative responses in check, he is self-aware and able to analyze his actions after the fact. He cannot always read the motivations of others, so he is repeatedly disappointed when girls are nice to him but pull back when he wants to take the relationship to the next level. This has obvious curricular uses in offering a new way to consider life-writing, as many young people can relate to life as a screenplay. Moreover, it offers keen insight into the way high-functioning kids with disabilities understand and move through their social milieu, and it's therefore a refreshingly factual counterpart to novels such as Stork's Marcelo in the Real World (BCCB 4/09) or Brenna's Wild Orchid (BCCB 6/08). Copyright © 2010 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois