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adventurous
dark
emotional
fast-paced
My 2010 review:
I honestly don't know why I bought this book originally. And it has been kicking around a few years now, being moved with me from house to flat to house. I am not into poetry and I never have heard of Mary Karr so who knows why this book appealed to me! Apparently it's a follow on to a previous memoir written by her. Anyway, you can read and enjoy this book even if you've never heard of her and never read her other books. I just read it like fiction - an account of a girl's teenage years dabbling in drugs and casual teenage sex during the late 60s and early 70s, in small town Texas.
It is very well written although the prelude felt a bit over done for me. Either that or I just got used to the style. Sometimes she writes as 'I' and sometimes it's 'you' - varying between chapters, and sometimes she just randomly changes voice part way through a chapter which just adds to the drug addled style that comes in as the book progresses.
In some ways there is nothing amazing or particularly shocking here, it's just someone's slightly wild teenage years. I'm not that mad on teenagers, and the self-involved, know-it-all nature of them did get a bit irritating at times, but to be honest, overall I enjoyed the book and it was pretty addictive reading. I got through it a lot quicker than I thought I would.
There was something about it that made me think of that mad bloke Augusten Burrows and his memoir Running with Scissors. This is nowhere near as mad - she was never left to live with the pyschiatrist by her mother - but there was something of the dysfunctional family, with her parents not appearing overally bothered that she ran a bit wild, and her mother forcing her to go on the pill at... was it 14 or 15? I forget. Anyway, there's a tempetous parental relationship, parents who disappear from the house, mothers who get drunk and threaten suicide and need to be looked after by the kids etc etc. All very different to the cotton-wool life everyone is expected to have these days.
"Interesting" I suppose I'd say if I had to sum it up in one word.
I honestly don't know why I bought this book originally. And it has been kicking around a few years now, being moved with me from house to flat to house. I am not into poetry and I never have heard of Mary Karr so who knows why this book appealed to me! Apparently it's a follow on to a previous memoir written by her. Anyway, you can read and enjoy this book even if you've never heard of her and never read her other books. I just read it like fiction - an account of a girl's teenage years dabbling in drugs and casual teenage sex during the late 60s and early 70s, in small town Texas.
It is very well written although the prelude felt a bit over done for me. Either that or I just got used to the style. Sometimes she writes as 'I' and sometimes it's 'you' - varying between chapters, and sometimes she just randomly changes voice part way through a chapter which just adds to the drug addled style that comes in as the book progresses.
In some ways there is nothing amazing or particularly shocking here, it's just someone's slightly wild teenage years. I'm not that mad on teenagers, and the self-involved, know-it-all nature of them did get a bit irritating at times, but to be honest, overall I enjoyed the book and it was pretty addictive reading. I got through it a lot quicker than I thought I would.
There was something about it that made me think of that mad bloke Augusten Burrows and his memoir Running with Scissors. This is nowhere near as mad - she was never left to live with the pyschiatrist by her mother - but there was something of the dysfunctional family, with her parents not appearing overally bothered that she ran a bit wild, and her mother forcing her to go on the pill at... was it 14 or 15? I forget. Anyway, there's a tempetous parental relationship, parents who disappear from the house, mothers who get drunk and threaten suicide and need to be looked after by the kids etc etc. All very different to the cotton-wool life everyone is expected to have these days.
"Interesting" I suppose I'd say if I had to sum it up in one word.
As a former Beaumont teen, I loved this book. Really captured those old acid drenched nights at the sand pits.
Could not put Karr's book down!
“The changes are coming fast and blind now, and in your skull sits an hourglass with a grain size hole through which numb seconds are sliding.”
― Mary Karr, Cherry
“The changes are coming fast and blind now, and in your skull sits an hourglass with a grain size hole through which numb seconds are sliding.”
― Mary Karr, Cherry
Again, I really enjoy Karr's writing style and her storytelling abilities. A very good read.
I didn't like this book quite as much as her first, The Liar's Club, but I did enjoy the book, and I like her writing enough to seek out her third book after finishing this one. I really enjoyed the author's use of language; you can tell she's a poet. I'm even tempted to try one of her poetry books, which is saying something from a lifelong reader who hated the poetry sections of my high school English classes.
I thought this book was really hard to get through. I read Cherry because I really liked Liar's Club and felt like I could almost relate to Karr throughout the memoir, but in Cherry I just felt like I was reading and hoping for something to happen...and then nothing. The middle started to bring me in but then the book just ended.
There is no doubt Mary Karr is a great writer. Her prose is poetic and her imagery is beautiful. But the switch to second person halfway through left me feeling disconnected from the story and the narrator.
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Content Warnings
Graphic: Drug use, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt
Moderate: Confinement, Racism, Sexual assault