Sophie's Throughway by Jules Smith
This short novel was fun and insightful. Sophie is a writer for an unnamed magazine, and struggling with her personal life. She has two teenagers, Bryony, who is 14, and Brendon, who is 15. Brendon has been recently diagnosed with Asperger's and PDA. I hadn't heard of PDA before, and learned it stands for Pathological Demand Avoidance, and is often associated with Asperger's. Brendon is very bright, but is having behavioural issues, which is particularly a problem at school. At home, it has created enough issus that Karl, Sophie's husband has left the family.
Sophie has been missing work to deal with Brendon's issues, and while she has an understanding boss, and makes up her work from home as much as she can, she worries about how this affects the other staff members.
The novel has a chicklit feel to it, with the social nature of Sophie's job, and her open communication with her children, but also more substance with the insight into having a child affected by these conditions. Sophie's got a good approach to it, and is better able to handle Brendon when he is in the midst of an inappropriate episode than Karl, but she's not a saint and that makes the book feel more real.
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