Product Description

Aged nine Simon Hattenstone one day woke up with a headache. By ten he had lost half his body weight, talked baby talk and looked retarded. The medical profession labelled him a malingerer. When he resurfaced it was to an alien environment every bit as terrifying as the one he'd just escaped from.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #651232 in Books
• Published on: 1999-06-17
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 250 pages

From the Author
how i feel
Hello. my name is Simon Hattenstone and I wrote the book Out Of It. At the moment, I'm experimenting with the Net and the easiest (and most solipsistic) route to discovery seems to be to search for yourself. But now I'm here if anyone has read Out Of It I'd be very interested to hear their comments. One of the weird things about writing a book is you haven't got that much of a clue how people feel about it, if they feel anything at all. Anyway, have a great year. love, simon

Customer Reviews

Hmph, doctors...
I borrowed this book from a friend of mine (who hadn't got around to reading it for herself), and subsequently lent it to a couple of other friends; a bunch of tough and sassy early 21st century kids, we were reduced to tears by this story. I honestly do not know how Simon Hattenstone clung onto the will to live; most of us would have given up a very long time ago. The most fantastic person in the book is Simon's mum, who does her best to cope through all his tantrums and tears and wizzard obsessions. The most distressing part of all this was that Simon had to go through two-odd years of hell because no-one in the medical profession would take him or his mum seriously. All in all, a very emotional and highly recommended read, although I'm still not sure if the tantrums were due solely to the illness, and not in part to becoming an adolescent.

Funny, poignant, nostalgic
How can you not feel sorry for a cheerful little 9-year-old boy who goes to bed with flu one day and spends the next couple of years suffering from a constant, splitting headache and a throat so sore he can barely speak?

Simon Hattenstone chronicles his long period of serious illness in a way that's sometimes achingly sad, sometimes laugh-out-loud funny, but never maudlin. He doesn't ask for sympathy, he doesn't portray himself as a stoical little hero - he just tells the truth, simply and vividly, and without bitterness.

Quite aside from Simon's illness, 'Out Of It' also evokes a 70s childhood in a way that will make you think you're there (even if you never were). Should also be required reading for doctors and child psychologists the world over.

I want to be Simon Hattenstone...
As a terribly reluctant reader, getting me to read let alone praise a book is pretty tough, but OUT of IT is, well, as we the youth would say, wiiiiiiicked! I would like to adopt it as my own biography if only it wasn't such an obviously personal piece. If anyone is fed up of being unwell, and you'll know who you are, read this. For anyone who has read this book, wanting to be Simon may seem bizare, but its not the being ill bit I want it's the getting better. The book is great at fulfilling the old cliche of letting you know that you aren't the only one; that others want to end it all but can't, that others feel so bad that they are hurting their mothers and that others are scared of getting well too. I personally feel stuck in the stage of about chapter 18, and I've got a long way to go to get to the epilogue but I'm gonna hang on to the book forever. I am now going to make my mother read it to show that I know how much I hurt her and how it isn't just me that the medical world seems to fob off with pills... I'm off to learn about prog rock now in the hope of wanting to live again. Thanks a load Si.