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Re-read in preparation for the upcoming release of LIT.
This second in Karr's series of memoirs covers her teen years in Texas, during which she wanders around stoned and poetical. She's about 10 years older than I am, and there is a lot of overlap in our respective memories. Her voice is pure and overcomes the at times awkward choice of second person narration. I do not become quite as immersed in this as I do in her earlier book, but I enjoy it mightily.
This second in Karr's series of memoirs covers her teen years in Texas, during which she wanders around stoned and poetical. She's about 10 years older than I am, and there is a lot of overlap in our respective memories. Her voice is pure and overcomes the at times awkward choice of second person narration. I do not become quite as immersed in this as I do in her earlier book, but I enjoy it mightily.
Take THAT Nabakov!
So this is a follow up to the Liars Club, her memoir of growing up with a dysfunctional family in Texas. This time around, she focuses on her coming of age years with a fantastic precision and recollection.
What I most admired about this book is the way you can see how a teenage girl can be bad and good, how she can be smart and yet naive, wild and yet sheltered all at the same time. Her stories about how her sexual emotions were budding was so very true to life- while she was having new feelings and registering new sensations in her body, she did not immediately conclude that intercourse was inevitable. In her mind, she envisioned more benign hugging and hand holding and kissing- ultimately more intimacy and connection that girls think of as love.
What is so fascinating is that while she knew all that she needed and more than she wanted from her mother, she still didn't put that together with what she was desiring. She even mentions how Lolita was so wrong when she read it because it was so polar opposite to her experiences. And how it was clearly a man's forcing boy thoughts into a young girl's mind and his twisted interpretation. While she may have done things that could be concluded as being flirty, young girls many times do not understand how their seemingly innocent actions can be wildly interpreted.
I related very much to this book- while I was a much better behaved girl in middle and high school when it came to authority, and my home live was more balanced (though dysfunctional in ways, I did have my drug and drinking period at the same time frame that she did and related a lot to the feelings of boredom and anxiety that wanting more gives a teenager. And I clearly remember being head over heels for my first boyfriend, as she was, and just never thinking that we needed to move any further than making out for hours. And, being devastated in how wrong I was when he broke up with me.
I can't wait to pass this one on...
So this is a follow up to the Liars Club, her memoir of growing up with a dysfunctional family in Texas. This time around, she focuses on her coming of age years with a fantastic precision and recollection.
What I most admired about this book is the way you can see how a teenage girl can be bad and good, how she can be smart and yet naive, wild and yet sheltered all at the same time. Her stories about how her sexual emotions were budding was so very true to life- while she was having new feelings and registering new sensations in her body, she did not immediately conclude that intercourse was inevitable. In her mind, she envisioned more benign hugging and hand holding and kissing- ultimately more intimacy and connection that girls think of as love.
What is so fascinating is that while she knew all that she needed and more than she wanted from her mother, she still didn't put that together with what she was desiring. She even mentions how Lolita was so wrong when she read it because it was so polar opposite to her experiences. And how it was clearly a man's forcing boy thoughts into a young girl's mind and his twisted interpretation. While she may have done things that could be concluded as being flirty, young girls many times do not understand how their seemingly innocent actions can be wildly interpreted.
I related very much to this book- while I was a much better behaved girl in middle and high school when it came to authority, and my home live was more balanced (though dysfunctional in ways, I did have my drug and drinking period at the same time frame that she did and related a lot to the feelings of boredom and anxiety that wanting more gives a teenager. And I clearly remember being head over heels for my first boyfriend, as she was, and just never thinking that we needed to move any further than making out for hours. And, being devastated in how wrong I was when he broke up with me.
I can't wait to pass this one on...