• Booklist Reviews : Booklist Reviews 2022 December #1
  Inspiring and empowering, this thoughtful, well-reported memoir covers the author's life, including his 2019 experience interviewing and writing about Joe Biden, the world's most famous stutterer. Hendrickson also weaves in highlights from dozens of others with stutters and sprinkles in such interesting tidbits as "people don't stutter when they sing." Like so many people who stutter, he was bullied, including by his own brother, because of his speech impediment. Ultimately, he forgives his sibling, who apologizes, and comes to realize stuttering can be a part of someone, not necessarily a weakness. Indeed, it conveys "two gifts" (one good and one bad): immense empathy (from being picked on and ostracized) and deep anger (from feeling frustrated and excluded). After the Atlantic publishes his Biden article, Hendrickson receives "personal, soulful, confessional" emails from fellow stutterers. This memoir reaches beyond Hendrickson's direct experience to advocate for "informative" rather than "apologetic self-disclosure about an impediment and chronicle new developments in speech therapy. This is a potentially life-changing read for everyone, not only for people who are struggling with feeling different. Copyright 2022 Booklist Reviews.

JOHN HENDRICKSON is a senior editor at The Atlantic. He previously wrote and edited for Rolling Stone, Esquire, and The Denver Post. His Atlantic feature “What Joe Biden Can’t Bring Himself to Say” was named one of the best stories of 2019 by Longform. He lives in New York City with his wife.