Stated to be by the whole family of Greta Thunberg, it's actually mostly by her mother, Malena, and is a slightly odd mix of her own autobiography, the story of their family in the run-up to Greta starting her first school strike, and big wodges of necessary but slightly clumsy information on climate change and what is not being done about it. I have long admired Greta but I'm not sure I need to know about her eating disorder or her and her sisters' paths to diagnosis of neurodiversity, or at least not all mixed in with the climate information as here. Apparently the family have distanced themselves from this book so I'm recording I read it, I think Greta's subsequent publications and work are perhaps more useful.

Due to a sudden, unexpected passing in the family a few years ago and another more recently and my subsequent (mental) health issues stemming from that, I was unable to download this book in time to review it before it was archived as I did not visit this site for several years after the bereavements. This meant I didn't read or venture onto netgalley for years as not only did it remind me of that person as they shared my passion for reading, but I also struggled to maintain interest in anything due to overwhelming depression. I was therefore unable to download this title in time and so I couldn't give a review as it wasn't successfully acquired before it was archived. The second issue that has happened with some of my other books is that I had them downloaded to one particular device and said device is now defunct, so I have no access to those books anymore, sadly.

This means I can't leave an accurate reflection of my feelings towards the book as I am unable to read it now and so I am leaving a message of explanation instead. I am now back to reading and reviewing full time as once considerable time had passed I have found that books have been helping me significantly in terms of my mindset and mental health - this was after having no interest in anything for quite a number of years after the passings. Anything requested and approved will be read and a review written and posted to Amazon (where I am a Hall of Famer & Top Reviewer), Goodreads (where I have several thousand friends and the same amount who follow my reviews) and Waterstones (or Barnes & Noble if the publisher is American based). Thank you for the opportunity and apologies for the inconvenience.

This book is written by.Marlena Ernman who is Greta Thunberg’s mother. She talks about her life raising two daughters with Asperger’s syndrome and how Greta became a passionate environmentalist. It comes across as an honest book, written with love and passion and that comes through.

As a keen eco-warrior, this book appealed to me.

I’m not sure what I expected from this book; probably something that tries to educate people about the climate crisis and get them to act. While this is part of the book, there was so much more to the story. The subtitle describes it very well: Scenes of a Family and a Planet in Crisis. The book is all about the Thunberg family, written from the mother’s perspective, and how they started fighting for the right cause whilst overcoming private issues that could affect any other family in the world.

The family’s history and dynamics are in the foreground of the first chapters of this book. It’s not all about their activism, but also the parents’ professions and how psychological disorders and neurodivergent conditions such as ADHD, OCD and autism affected their family. I wasn’t expecting so much openness about this. It was particularly interesting for me to see how they treat autism as a condition to live with, rather than a limiting disorder, because that is how it should be!

I am even more impressed by Greta and her family now than I already was before.

Wow. This was such an inpiring book, which focused on the background of Greta’s childhood and what brought her to the point of taking world-wide action.
I think I’m more in awe of her now but also her family and how they approach mental health and support her.

However, the cover hinted that Greta had written it but it was actually authored by her Mother. In places it did feel like she was trying to cash in on her daughters fame and is selling her story.

Very through provoking but I really couldn't warm to this and just found it wasn't for me. There was something which just didn't seem right to me.

This was a fantastic read. I loved the insight to the Thunberg family as well as the emotional connection to saving the planet.

An extremely thought provoking read. This book gives a powerful insight into the difficulties faced when a young girl with Asperger’s Syndrome finds out the truth about we have done and continue to do to our planet.

An incredibly emotional story. We hear so much about Greta Thunberg but I've never really known the background that she comes from and "her story". It is heartbreaking to see what struggles her and her family had to face, but also empowering to see that the things which many felt held her back are actually what gives her the strength to fight for bigger things.

I thought this would be about Greta's journey and climate change and for the most part it is. I just did not understand why a fair bit of the book was an autobiography of Greta's mother! The climate change parts are really important and eye opening though, it's just a shame the whole book wasn't focused on this.

Many thanks to Netgalley and Penguin Books UK for my copy. This was a very interesting and thought provoking read. As a parent I particularly enjoyed and related strongly to the mental health issues that they have been through as a family and as individuals. A powerful narrative and a great book.

I really did not warm to this book. Malena seemed very self-congratulatory, and to be honest, the whole book smacked of band wagon jumping. It does not paint the family in a good light.

Firstly, whilst this book has Greta Thunberg's name on it, it seems to be written predominantly by Malena Ernman, her mother. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, it just wasn't quite what I was expecting when I picked it up. The book is about their family, and also about the climate crisis, and it does cover both of those topics in depth. However, at the beginning it states that the book is not an autobiography. I disagree. The book does feel very autobiographical. It's the story of the family, and their journey through mental health problems and becoming climate activists.

The first quarter of the book didn't interest me all that much. It was predominantly about Malena's life and her music career. It felt like a celebrity autobiography, with a lot of information about Malena's musical career and name drops of other famous people. I personally didn't find this very interesting and found myself skim reading it, waiting for Greta's voice and the climate crisis parts. However, if you're interested in celebrities, Malena Ernman, or opera, you might find it really interesting.

Then we move into their family crisis. This interested me more, although I would have preferred to read about it more from Greta and Beata's perspective. I find that when I read parents talking about their childrens' breakdowns I feel slightly voyeuristic. At first I was worried, because it felt like a typical autistic child narrative, with quotes like 'she was slowly disappearing into some kind of darkness' and 'we would have to find the way back to Greta'. However, as the book progressed I felt like overall it had a positive outlook on neurodiversity, without minimising the problems that being autistic in a neurotypical world can cause. Neurodivergent people are the future. We are at the forefront of things like science and research and tech, often because of special interests and intense focus. ASD is often used to discredit people, and I have seen posts online attacking Greta because she is autistic, but it is often the reason why people are so good at what they do. It is because of disability, not despite it. The links between autism and eating disorders were also interesting to read about and not something that I often see being discussed. There are also some very valid points about diagnosis, gatekeeping and access to support. I found Beata's journey to a diagnosis and support particularly telling of the issues in the medical system when it comes to supporting neurodivergent children. I do want to note that, for anyone who has an eating disorder, this book may be triggering as food amounts, eating disorder behaviours and weight numbers are mentioned at times.

Once the book finally starts talking about the climate crisis there are plenty of interesting facts and figures. I found these parts of the book more interesting. The book details exactly how Greta became a climate activist, and her journey to starting her school strike for the climate. I found her journey fascinating, and incredibly inspiring.

Sometimes this book doesn't feel particularly well written; lot of the sentences feel quite disjointed. I'm unsure if this is due to it originally being written in Swedish, and is something to do with the tranlation/rewrite into English, or if the original is also a bit disjointed. There is actually a chapter that appears to be written by Greta which flows a lot better. I'd recommend her book of speeches if people are interested. If the writing was a bit more polished and there was a little less about Malena's musical career at the beginning of the book I would probably bump this up to 4.5 stars.

We've all heard of Greta Thunberg, the young climate change activist who has become the poster child for a global movement. What I didn't know much about was who Greta was outside of her media personality, and "Our House Is On Fire" promised to fill in the gaps.

While I did learn more about Greta's childhood and her mental health issues, the book, written by Greta's mother Marlena, felt largely self-congratulatory - a whole book of humble bragging about her own parenting skills and her career as an opera singer.

I enjoyed the parts that were actually about Greta, but unfortunately these sections were few and far between - most of the book uses Greta as a lens to reflect on Marlena's own life and career, which I don't think anyone who came to this book would be really interested in.

It definitely gives an insight in Greta's childhood and the beginnings of her activism, but my advice would be to wait for Greta's own autobiography.

Thank you to NetGalley and to the publisher who gave me a free advance copy of this book in exchange fro an honest review.

Unfortunately I found this really hard to get into and to grasp. When I decided to read it I hadn’t appreciated what it was about so didn’t know what to expect. When I’d figured it out I enjoyed it overall.

What an interesting book with so many important facts and opinions that it was a pleasure to be able to read. I had already read and watched other things that Greta Thunburg has been involved in, and her intelligence shone through in this. I highly recommend that others read this book, of any age as it is incredibly previlant and important, even with the current state of the world right now. The message that she delivers should not be forgotten, love this book.

I'll be honest, I didn't love this book. This was perhaps due to my own misunderstandings about what this book would be when I first came across and requested it on NetGalley. The book lists Greta Thunberg, her sister, and her parents as co-authors, and so I expected a cowritten account of the family's journey to their well-known climate change activism. To some extent, this was the case, and it was clear that there was collaboration between all members of the family to produce this book. However, the account is written entirely from the perspective of Greta's mother, Malena (including chapters that describe events where Malena wasn't present and she is describing what happens from the point of view of other family members, which read kind of strange, in my opinion), and a significant portion of the book is an account of Malena's life and experiences, which, honestly, I just wasn't that interested in. Certainly, it was interesting to read about the family's journey and struggles, and I particularly admired the candid way that Malena talks about mental health and autism. There are some really important discussion here about the realities of living with autism and the lack of understanding and research around it. It was also interesting and incredibly inspiring to learn about how Greta has been able to overcome so many struggles to get to the position that she is in today, where she delivers interviews and speeches to thousands of people and has had such a resounding impact on so many people's understandings of climate change. However, I found that the book was a bit all over the place. At some points, it read like Malena's memoir, while at other points it focused on informing the reader about the climate crisis. Chapters would jump back and forth between different topics without clear links between them. I think there'll be plenty of readers who enjoy this style but it personally wasn't for me and made it difficult for me to stay engaged. Overall, while there were certainly interesting points made in this book, I would probably recommend reading No One Is Too Small To Make A Difference and keeping up with Greta's online activism, instead.

I received this book free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Writing with thanks to Netgalley and Penguin Uk publishers. I'm sorry I did not like this book though. I was curious to read it to find out more about Greta Thunberg and her cause and the book started out well enough. The good thing about the book is that I would lvoe to find out more about Climate Change and also about Autism/Aspergers. However I found the mother/author self indulgent and the kids spoilt. I switched off from reading when one of the chapters describes the younger daughter who is still a child at the time calls her mother a 'Stupid F***ing B***h". No punishment but she gets to go on holiday with her dad to spend quality time with him. One of my pet dislikes is when people are rude.

I also am not sure how much of Greta's behaviour is because of her or because she has an over bearing mother who is thrusting her into the limelight. What concerns me more is that she is a young girl with an eating disorder. is one of the people I most admire and so when I saw this book on Overdrive with her name first on the cover, I assumed she wrote it and that it was about climate change. It would be a book full of facts and maybe contain a bit about herself as well.

One of the chapters talks about how Malena could have written an auto biography or any other kind of book.

I really want to read something that is more uplifting now and certainly something less self indulgent.

One of the things that was good about this book is that there is some description of the bullying that Greta went through at school just because she is different. I really feel for anyone who is bullied as it can be so nasty and they also mentioned how they dealt with it. Fortunately, some aspects were in writing so they were able to tackle the bullying. I'm conscious that too many parents world wide end up having to take their kids out of school.

I didn't know before about the death threats, which shows how nasty people can be and also the comments even from Trump, the less said about the better.

What has made me interested in reading the book are the other reviews about it and maybe after a re read my feelings about the book will change. I will see.

Actually written by Greta's mum -Very interesting background to Greta's family and an educational read. Not what i normally read as I prefer fiction but very insightful.

‘It is 2 November 2014, and on this evening I will sing my last opera in Sweden. But no one is aware of that. Including me. This evening I will sing my last opera ever’ (Malena Ernman).

Malena Ernman is an internationally famous Swedish opera singer, and a winner of the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest. Oh, and she happens to be Greta Thunberg’s mother.

‘Our house is on fire’ is an agonizing, honest, unprettified description of a family’s collapse: that’s half the story. Swedish sisters Greta and Beata lived with their parents, Malena Ernman and Svante Thunberg. All was well. But progressively, just before adolescence, the girls started struggling with a number of increasingly complex problems: difficulties with eating, selective mutism, hyperactivity, sensitivity to sounds, obsessionality. The family’s life became smaller & smaller, caught in a maze of seeking the right diagnoses & trying to find relief. Greta was eventually diagnosed with Asperger’s & her sister with ADHD.

This is the story of a family crisis but also the path to a solution. When Greta was 15, as the family was slowly emerging from its crisis, she took her food & school books & sat in front of the Swedish parliament. She stayed for weeks on her ‘school strike for climate’. You know the rest of that story.

In this way, Greta’s autism, hindering her life until then, became a solution: it offered the single-minded focus needed to tear away the denial around climate change burdening us all.

This is not a smooth, skillfully written book. I wondered also, while reading, about the unrelenting emphasis on diagnosis in the family which pained me: what else might have helped? But these thoughts are beside the point. Greta’s insistent, stubborn, crystal-clear statement that ‘our house is on fire’ opened a route not just for her family, which I think found common purpose through their climate activism, but for all of us, with our ‘business as usual’ attitudes around climate. It was about time.

Thanks to #negalley for my free copy, in exchange for an honest review.