In a tone that brings to mind bubbly teenage girls, Jessica Peers recounts five years at a National Autistic Society residential school in the United Kingdom. The back cover of this book suggests that the book will give insights into Asperger's syndrome. On that point, it seems to be wrong. However, it does give a lot of insight into institutional life.

Peers has a talent for wryly amusing caricature, whether in drawing (her cartoons appear throughout the book) or in sketching out people's character in words. Not everything in the book is amusing, though. There are some truly harrowing scenes of physical and emotional abuse by staff, as well as the usual detached brusqueness that crops up in places like that. The funny descriptions offset the often-heavy situations enough to make it readable to us without causing too much pain, and one almost wonders if the author had the same idea herself.