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3.24 AVERAGE
3.24 AVERAGE
THIS IS NOT A MEMOIR OF A RUNAWAY.
Held to the title (and expectation it creates) this book fails miserably.
marquardt “ran away” and lived at a friends house for three months but that’s only a small fact in the story shared.
Mostly this book follows her 16th year where she lives with her mom (verbally abusive and emotionally unavailable) and “step dad” but is miserable and frequently visits her father (who is an alcoholic). Her teenage angst comes through (the writing is pretty solid and flows well) and it reads like a playbook of that year (lots of parties, experimentation, nervousness around boys and blackouts from excessive drinking). It’s honest.
New ‘friends’ also bring her into the goth scene (which is informative—I leaned more about it) and she also meets her first “boyfriend” whom she loses her virginity too (TMI serials) and at the end of the book she mentions—quickly—a teacher in her class who asks her to help out with the school theater so TADA—this brings us full circle to how she ended up on broadway (or whatever) today.
So as a memoir about a “runaway”? 👎
HOWEVER, this book accurately portrays alcoholism and how immature parents use children as pawns in divorce. I think this memoir could be cathartic and validating for a lot of people, though they will probably never read it because they won’t know it applies to them — sad.
The brute honesty in which she writes and shares her experience is also commendable — for those familiar with 12-step programs, this book is a loooong speaker meeting, except it doesn’t wrap up. There’s no “rock bottom” or epiphany to where when or how she turned her life around (except a quick line about “yay I got into theater school”)
More annoying, she says things like “that was before I got sober” “or it would take me years to see I needed to stop drinking” but leaves that there with no detail or transition. You miss out on the good stuff.
Another example was she quipped “this was before I knew I could determine what happens with my body and say no” but leaves that there—never saying more about it. I would have loooved more on that and less about metal corsets.
The writing is good, and she will keep you captivated, but mostly this book overpromises and hardly delivers what it says it will. I’m rubbed and disappointed.
Trigger warnings: physical abuse, incest, molestation, abusive parents, emotional blackmail, alcoholism.
Held to the title (and expectation it creates) this book fails miserably.
marquardt “ran away” and lived at a friends house for three months but that’s only a small fact in the story shared.
Mostly this book follows her 16th year where she lives with her mom (verbally abusive and emotionally unavailable) and “step dad” but is miserable and frequently visits her father (who is an alcoholic). Her teenage angst comes through (the writing is pretty solid and flows well) and it reads like a playbook of that year (lots of parties, experimentation, nervousness around boys and blackouts from excessive drinking). It’s honest.
New ‘friends’ also bring her into the goth scene (which is informative—I leaned more about it) and she also meets her first “boyfriend” whom she loses her virginity too (TMI serials) and at the end of the book she mentions—quickly—a teacher in her class who asks her to help out with the school theater so TADA—this brings us full circle to how she ended up on broadway (or whatever) today.
So as a memoir about a “runaway”? 👎
HOWEVER, this book accurately portrays alcoholism and how immature parents use children as pawns in divorce. I think this memoir could be cathartic and validating for a lot of people, though they will probably never read it because they won’t know it applies to them — sad.
The brute honesty in which she writes and shares her experience is also commendable — for those familiar with 12-step programs, this book is a loooong speaker meeting, except it doesn’t wrap up. There’s no “rock bottom” or epiphany to where when or how she turned her life around (except a quick line about “yay I got into theater school”)
More annoying, she says things like “that was before I got sober” “or it would take me years to see I needed to stop drinking” but leaves that there with no detail or transition. You miss out on the good stuff.
Another example was she quipped “this was before I knew I could determine what happens with my body and say no” but leaves that there—never saying more about it. I would have loooved more on that and less about metal corsets.
The writing is good, and she will keep you captivated, but mostly this book overpromises and hardly delivers what it says it will. I’m rubbed and disappointed.
Trigger warnings: physical abuse, incest, molestation, abusive parents, emotional blackmail, alcoholism.
She is a really good writer. It was interesting hearing her story. I would be interested to hear what happened once she got to college and beyond.
"I also know how little it takes to break a broken person."
Would I recommend this read, nope.
It is far too ugly for the average.
Do I relate to all of the ugly, yep!
Would I recommend this read, nope.
It is far too ugly for the average.
Do I relate to all of the ugly, yep!
I found this book very difficult to read. It was filled with angst, fear and raw emotions. An honest portrayal of life filled with abuse and an unloving family. It is the story of a search for those things in the most unlikely environment. It is not a world I am comfortable with but the author's honesty and openness to share her experiences drew me in and I found myself rooting for her to find a meaningful life. I wanted to put this book down but found myself picking it up again and again, unable to move on with my own life until I knew how Tanya's had turned out. A thought provoking book, it made me appreciate my own life in new ways.
Surprisingly insightful. My biggest take away was the theme that she didn't know she could say no.
Shocking and scary. The poor kids that slip thru the cracks and get lost in the crowd. This is a dramatic story that could have ended badly, if teachers hadn't seen the spark in this girl. A touching story of how this girl saved herself.
Good book with a deep dive into teenage angst. It was an interesting peek into the emergence of goth obsession.
"Stray" is an appropriate title for this book, but "memoir of a runaway" is not. This book is about the author, Tanya Marquardt, who "ran away" to live with friends in the same town as her mom, who knew where she was. But it's also the story of a seriously messed up and lonely childhood and parents who weren't not there for Tanya and had no idea how to be parents. An abusive, alcoholic father, and a mother who just seemed lost and clueless about how to parent. I couldn't put the book down, partly because of Tanya's poetic writing, but it was also like a car crash. I hate to say that since it is a memoir, but this book was horribly angsty and depressing and abusive, and I really wanted to know if Tanya eventually got help and lifted out of her situation. That kept me reading, but the book doesn't let you know. It ends and leaves you needing to Google the author to find out what happened to her. But I stayed for the writing.
It was gritty and hard to read in places. A dark and grim look at life outside of all familial and parental bounds looks like. There were parts that felt unfinished tho, snips of “I had yet learned....” but the book ends abruptly. There’s no epilogue of how she outgrew the frantic partying or growing alcoholism. No commentary on the clear dangers she was putting herself in...Just “I’m going to college” where a more resound resolution would have been appreciated.