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3.3 AVERAGE
3.3 AVERAGE
This memoir was extremely engaging. It paid great attention to detail and flowed well. The stories about the person's mother were outlandish and astounding.
This is a compulsively readable memoir. The main focus is the writer's relationship with her glamorous, narcissistic, sex-and-drug-addicted mother, and how this bond (rife with violence, intensity and betrayal) reverberated over the course of the author's life and relationships. The writing is straightforward and not too frilly; the story is fascinating and at times shocking, with a raw-edged honesty that resonated with me. Most affecting for me was Sonnenberg's description of her use of sexuality as power-play, performance, validation and payback. The quote below rings true for any woman who has found herself relying on her powers of seduction to simulate connection, while in truth avoiding the faintest threat of vulnerability and intimacy.
"There was no such thing as waiting. I never needed to wait. I didn’t know how not to meet someone, because every 'Excuse me?' meant a willingness, every released button the arching awareness of my effect on people, that urgent agenda to show off in bed what just wasn’t possible to show in the produce section or the bookstore."
"There was no such thing as waiting. I never needed to wait. I didn’t know how not to meet someone, because every 'Excuse me?' meant a willingness, every released button the arching awareness of my effect on people, that urgent agenda to show off in bed what just wasn’t possible to show in the produce section or the bookstore."
This was a disturbing read for me, as I caught glimpses of several people I know, and not always in a good way.
And now, as I actually completed my review, Good Reads asked if I would like to recommend this to any of my friends that like "Chick Lit."
I would recommend this book to any of my friends, however, I cannot even begin to comprehend how this book could ever be considered chick lit. And I love chick lit. This isn't it.
And now, as I actually completed my review, Good Reads asked if I would like to recommend this to any of my friends that like "Chick Lit."
I would recommend this book to any of my friends, however, I cannot even begin to comprehend how this book could ever be considered chick lit. And I love chick lit. This isn't it.
Underdeveloped characters with a storyline that has been done so much that I was expecting the best. There was build up only to go nowhere. This book was pure disappointment.
I can't say I hated this book, but I didn't like it much, either. Through most of it I kept asking myself, "Why in God's name did I buy this?" I wasn't very sympathetic to Sonnenberg's story, though I feel like I could have been had it been told better. My penchant for memoirs has soured a little thanks to this one.
I'm sure that there are people out there that like this kind of book. Mostly to me, it just seemed terrible. Not terrible in the way that it was written badly, but terrible in that 90% of the book feels like the author is showing off - "See how edgy and rebellious, and daring I was as a teenager? See how difficult my life was? Isn't it amazing that I turned into this fairly normal woman after years and years of being a terrible?"
Another thing that will tell you something - I thought this was fiction until about 2/3 of the way through I realized it was an actual memoir. Whoops.
Another thing that will tell you something - I thought this was fiction until about 2/3 of the way through I realized it was an actual memoir. Whoops.
Didn't dislike it, but didn't love it. I've certainly read similar stories and memoirs. I get it and it doesn't surprise me how things turned out in the end. My frustration comes mostly from the difficulty in keeping track of names (especially when moved to nicknames) and timelines. Perhaps that just really solidifies the chaos of her upbringing, but it didn't work very well for me.
Where I did start to get really invested was around the chapter titled "Choosing."
I'm sure bits and pieces can speak to many different people and I passed it on for someone else to enjoy.
Where I did start to get really invested was around the chapter titled "Choosing."
I'm sure bits and pieces can speak to many different people and I passed it on for someone else to enjoy.
Crazy mother memoir. Lied about having cancer, being raped etc to get attention. Introduced her daughter to cocaine when she was 12. Mom is in car accident and daughter has to decide whether to go visit her on her real deathbed
Devoured this.
I love her take on memory - how she admits right up front that she's changed the names so this is her story, since everyone else will remember it differently. I love her honesty and I love how she never comes out and judges her mother or tries to give a name or substance to the problem. It just is.
I love her take on memory - how she admits right up front that she's changed the names so this is her story, since everyone else will remember it differently. I love her honesty and I love how she never comes out and judges her mother or tries to give a name or substance to the problem. It just is.
I cannot imagine what life must have been like, growing up with such a crazy mother, though for some reason I didn't sympathize with the author as much as I expected too. I don't know why that is, perhaps something in the writing? Maybe it was the strange contrast of a traumatic relationship with a crazy mother in a life of expenses and excess, money tossed around so carelessly. I don't know. I'm also very, very curious as to the mother's perspective about the whole thing. (Which isn't to say I don't believe the author, I do, I'm just curious.) I did cringe often at the awkward situations the mother put the daughter in and can appreciate how horribly skewed the author's views on sex and propriety became. I was glad to see the author find peace, though I wonder if that relationship has stayed strong. (What a strong man she must have found to help her through such a crazy upbringing.) I guess my main problem is that this book has such a note of "feel bad for me" to it. I DO, of course, but I recently read a memoir written by a woman with an astoundingly horrid childhood that was much more matter-of-fact and I appreciated it more. I'd rather have my own feelings about a situation than have them handed to me, I suppose. But, yes, an addicting read, I'll admit to that