Born on a Blue Day

Born on a Blue Day by Daniel Tammet (2006)

**This fulfills my challenge--written by an author I haven't read before
This has been on my to-read list for months so perhaps I expected too much, but I was very disappointed. It's a memoir of an austistic man starting with his earliest memories as a boy and taking us to his present twenty-something life. Most of what stuck with me about his life is what I already know is common in autism--a compulsive need for routine, seeing colors in numbers, and difficulty empathizing or functioning in social situations. What is perhaps unique in Daniel's tale is that he traveled to Lithuania and lived on his own and taught English for an entire year following secondary school. This experience served as a wake-up and introduction to the greater world and he comes home to meet his boyfriend whom he still lives with.

Although Tammet had several unique experiences (meeting Kim Peek, the inspiration for Rain Man, reciting all the decimal places in pi for five hours, learning the Icelandic language in a week, appearing on David Letterman), I felt the writing was bland. There was a lot of boring talk about numbers and the words didn't really come alive for me. The only part of the book that really captured me was the small part of his chapter on falling in love in which he shows a hidden emotional side. He wrote, "Falling in love is like nothing else; there isn't a right or a wrong way to fall in love with another person, no mathematical equation for love and the perfect relationship."