Book Review: Mother Warriors

Jenny McCarthy's novel, Mother Warriors, is a very inspirational book even to those who aren't affected by autism. In her novel, Jenny opens eyes to various treatments and way for a child suffering from autism to recover. Her strength, in the novel and real life, has reached an incredible amount simply because she has to deal with this terrible disease in her son, Evan.

Jenny sets up the book in a very odd way. Her foreword seems to summarize a bunch of various studies by doctors. It also seems to kind of explain the disease just in case the reader isn't well informed about autism. Then, Jenny divided the novel into two major sections. The first section, The Time Is Now, talks about her struggle. Jenny McCarthy tells the reader about the different talk shows she was on and the difficulties she went through in trying to find help from doctors for her son. The second part, Strength In Numbers, shares the stories of other mothers who have had to endure similar battles. It also talks about the affects on the different family members that autism can have. Throughout the book she addresses the idea that vaccines given to infants can cause a disease that results in autism and that doctors today aren't up to date on their information about the treatments of the disease.

Jenny McCarthy's main strength was obviously her ability to pull out emotions from the reader. She is able to make the reader actually feel like the child, whether it's her son on another mother's son, is a part of their family. Jenny also describes the devastating affects of autism on the parent's marriage, the other siblings in the family, and even how families have dealt with their autistic child growing up to adult age. Jenny shows how everyone is affected by an autistic child and the strength it takes to handle a very difficult situation in a family. In a way, she gives the reader a 360 degree look at how the family, not the just the sick child, changes when autism is diagnosed. She just opens the reader's eyes to the emotional and physical affects that autism can have and she illustrates her passion for finding a cure.

One of Jenny McCarthy's weaknesses was the actual structure of the book. It was a great idea to tie in other stories from families with a few differences in their situations, but I didn't really like that the book was split into parts. She also needed a new editor. Jenny had too many grammatical errors, especially for someone who has written four other books and is considered a best seller. I realize she wanted to make the book understandable for a broad range of age groups, but the book was just an easy read. If I did not know she had written other books, I definitely would not have been able to tell from reading this book. I believe if she added some more details form her struggle and increased the reading level, then the book would have been a lot more interesting for me.

I did enjoy this book very much. The fact that it is so controversial makes it really interesting. I loved reading about autism because I had never really known much about it and I never knew the level of emotions involved in a family that has an autistic child. I did learn an enormous amount of information about vaccines and recovering from autism, but I just think the whole book could have been written better. This book is considered 'ground breaking', which is an accomplishment for Jenny and she should be proud.

Jenny wasn't afraid to express her views and say what others were too afraid to put out there, and that fact alone can be inspirational. She went against the opinions doctors and pediatricians in hopes of helping at least one family. Jenny McCarthy's book raised a lot of eyebrows and caused some people's blood to boil, but isn't a good novel supposed to do that?