Take a photo of a barcode or cover
4.14 AVERAGE
4.14 AVERAGE
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
I love her writing. And, mostly, I loved this book, too. As a birthmother, it was terribly painful in parts, and I sort of wished I could read it with my eyes closed, wincing.
challenging
emotional
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
Fantastic and great, sad and depressing, and absolutely wonderful. Jeanette Winterson continues from her classic 'Orange is not the only fruit', evaluates her childhood, and the years after she left home. She takes the reader on the journey of having to survive her childhood, finding herself, dealing with the 'symptoms' her mother's behaviour left her with, and understanding how she fits into the world. Very honest and wonderfully reflective.
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
It feels wrong and redundant to give Jeanette Winterson’s adoption story a star rating BUT it was honestly incredible - so funny, poignant and profound. I love her exploration of class & community, and the representation for those who have been adopted and what family means to them. It’s such a complex and multifaceted topic that she explores so eloquently.
I loved oranges when I read it at uni but this was better!
I loved oranges when I read it at uni but this was better!
I love memoirs, but OMG, just tell the story already! This book reminded me too much of The Alchemist, which I didn’t enjoy. It’s filled with pauses, metaphors, and repeated quotes from previous works, making it difficult to stay engaged. I found myself skipping over the ‘self-help’ talk but still ended up rolling my eyes. While I genuinely appreciate the heart of her story—and I did—it was the chaotic writing style that ultimately didn’t work for me.
This happens to be the first book of Winterson's I've read, and I didn't realize it was a memoir initially. I wasn't prepared for the tragedy of her childhood, but I read on and gladly, saw her persevere and become the intelligent author and strong individual we know.
Although I don't agree with all her views on adoption, I understand them as her personal experience, and I like her style of writing and her honesty about her struggles with depression.
I'm looking forward to her fiction work, and especially some of the children's books she's written.
Although I don't agree with all her views on adoption, I understand them as her personal experience, and I like her style of writing and her honesty about her struggles with depression.
I'm looking forward to her fiction work, and especially some of the children's books she's written.
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
This was my first introduction to Jeanette Winterston and memoirs as a genre and this was really a transformative experience for me. Winterston’s writing is absolutely amazing, it sucked me in instantly and the lyrical, flowing prose mixed with the author’s deep delve into their history and their psyche kinda swept me away in the force of it’s flow. Getting to know her through the textures of her past, from her very birth to her current life was an intense journey, and I feel like what she portrayed felt very real and intense through the pages, even though she said she writes herself through fiction. The intertextuality, references to other literature and how literature shaped her, her class and England was so skillfully and beautifully implemented as well. Tens across the board.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Suicide attempt, Lesbophobia