Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.99 AVERAGE
3.99 AVERAGE
dark
emotional
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
I feel like when a lot of us hear the word “alcoholic” our minds jump straight to the image of a Frank Gallagher type character stumbling down the street with a brown paper bag. In this memoir Knapp was able to brilliantly articulate what it’s like being a “high-functioning alcoholic” living a so-called “double life” and how the disease is so insidious that many people don’t know it’s there until long after the fact. She drives the point that this disease could happen to anyone, even those who appear to have their life together.
I wanted to give this a better rating because I have the utmost respect for anyone who is able to share such a brutally honest account of their struggles. I just found this to be a little too repetitive and longwinded at times, and jumping back and forth between time periods made it difficult to follow her timeline.
It’s heartbreaking that she lost a battle to lung cancer so shortly after beating her battle against alcohol. The light I find in this is that she at least continues to make an impact with her memoir, helping readers understand their own relationship with alcohol or that of their loved ones with addictions.
I wanted to give this a better rating because I have the utmost respect for anyone who is able to share such a brutally honest account of their struggles. I just found this to be a little too repetitive and longwinded at times, and jumping back and forth between time periods made it difficult to follow her timeline.
It’s heartbreaking that she lost a battle to lung cancer so shortly after beating her battle against alcohol. The light I find in this is that she at least continues to make an impact with her memoir, helping readers understand their own relationship with alcohol or that of their loved ones with addictions.
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
medium-paced
Read in October: https://hollograms.blogspot.com/2020/11/books-read-in-october-2020.html
This book was really popular when it came out in the 90's, partly due to Knapp's writing but also as apparently there were few addiction memoirs written by women at the time. Of course, now there are a cornucopia of memoirs on any addiction or illness you might think of. This is still a worthwhile read, and I think it would particularly resonate with women who are in recovery or those they are close to. Amazingly, during part of the time she was alchoholic she was anorexic as well and managed to wrestle control over both conditions.
Knapp's tale is one of a successful and highly functional alcoholic and in the beginning the book moved a little slowly for me as she pondered the mild dysfunction of her childhood and the early days of her illness (although the story of her half brother, Wicky, who was blind, dangerously violent and developmentally disabled as a result of fetal alcohol syndrome was riveting.) I was happy that she recovered of course, but a whole book of polite revelations about how she was a successful columnist by day who quietly sat at home and drank too much wine by night wasn't that compelling. Of course, someone who has been in Knapp's position would likely have a very different take on this and identify painfully well with this story. And you can't drink as much and as long as the author did without drama and calamity eventually encroaching, and they did. I liked that Knapp was so unflichingly honest in her story including anecdotes that some readers would dislike her for, such as divulging her practice of checking her car every morning after a blackout to make sure she hadn't hit anyone on the way home. The story isn't told in chronological order and is exceptionally thoughtful and well-written, but was a little difficult to follow in parts. I sometimes found myself flipping back and forth to remember various characters who were mentioned in brief 100 pages ago. Still, I did like this book and the author very much by the end and the story of her recovery was quite touching, as were the stories of her friends from Rehab who didn't make it.
This isn't a critique of the book or the author but it was very difficult to read the many references to smoking in the story. The author telling her boyfriend or family she was going out to buy smokes in order to drink, and then rapidly smoking cigarettes on the way home, insisting on meeting AA friends in a coffee shop where you could smoke, her Mother begging her on her deathbed to quit smoking. Knapp lost both her parents to cancer within a year of each other. She herself died of lung cancer 6 years after this book was published. Shortly before that, she married photographer Mark Morelli who took the back jacket photo. I wondered if he was the "Michael" mentioned in this book but that never was clarified in the handful of stories I Googled about her.
Knapp's tale is one of a successful and highly functional alcoholic and in the beginning the book moved a little slowly for me as she pondered the mild dysfunction of her childhood and the early days of her illness (although the story of her half brother, Wicky, who was blind, dangerously violent and developmentally disabled as a result of fetal alcohol syndrome was riveting.) I was happy that she recovered of course, but a whole book of polite revelations about how she was a successful columnist by day who quietly sat at home and drank too much wine by night wasn't that compelling. Of course, someone who has been in Knapp's position would likely have a very different take on this and identify painfully well with this story. And you can't drink as much and as long as the author did without drama and calamity eventually encroaching, and they did. I liked that Knapp was so unflichingly honest in her story including anecdotes that some readers would dislike her for, such as divulging her practice of checking her car every morning after a blackout to make sure she hadn't hit anyone on the way home. The story isn't told in chronological order and is exceptionally thoughtful and well-written, but was a little difficult to follow in parts. I sometimes found myself flipping back and forth to remember various characters who were mentioned in brief 100 pages ago. Still, I did like this book and the author very much by the end and the story of her recovery was quite touching, as were the stories of her friends from Rehab who didn't make it.
This isn't a critique of the book or the author but it was very difficult to read the many references to smoking in the story. The author telling her boyfriend or family she was going out to buy smokes in order to drink, and then rapidly smoking cigarettes on the way home, insisting on meeting AA friends in a coffee shop where you could smoke, her Mother begging her on her deathbed to quit smoking. Knapp lost both her parents to cancer within a year of each other. She herself died of lung cancer 6 years after this book was published. Shortly before that, she married photographer Mark Morelli who took the back jacket photo. I wondered if he was the "Michael" mentioned in this book but that never was clarified in the handful of stories I Googled about her.
emotional
slow-paced
An incredibly brave memoir of the late Caroline Knapp's twenty year battle with alcoholism. Boldly written and unflinchingly honest, the book is an inspiration for anyone who suffers from a substance or alcohol problem, or any other form of addictive behaviour.
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
I read this book right after I quit drinking, and it really helped reinforce some good lessons I was just learning. The book is a memoir of sorts, written by a woman who was a "well-adjusted, polite drunk." A lot of things she wrote resonated within me, including multiple addictions, and maintaining the fascade of wine connoisseur (with the real goal being to get drunk).