genre: memoir
The first thing we learn about Josh is that he is a librarian, more specifically, a librarian in the Salt Lake City library. His experiences in the library and his journey to arrive at this career are a huge part of this story. But an even bigger part is that Josh has Tourette's Syndrome and it is this detail about Josh that impacts every day of his life in ways both big and small. From his diagnosis to his pain and frustration trying to control it, to new therapies and ways of looking at this syndrome to his eventual tactic to keep his Tourette's in check, this is what Josh keeps coming back to. The final big thread of Josh's book is his faith, how it ebbs and flows as he grows up and figures out what he can believe in.
My sister recommended this to me, otherwise I'm not sure I'd have tried it but dang, it was an interesting listen. As someone who was also raised Mormon, there was a lot that's familiar here to me but he does a good job of explaining what might not be obvious. I loved the book love here. I don't know a whole lot about Tourette's and he does such a wonderful job of helping his readers understand, in a visceral way, the way his life has been shaped by it. It jumped around a lot in time and sometimes the plotting felt a little random but I had no problem following and the time on my long drives through New England went by really quickly with this one in my ear.
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