A review by livingpalm1
Cherry by Mary Karr

4.0

Once I got started on Mary Karr's account of her life in The Liars' Club, I didn't want to stop. Cherry is the sequel memoir, telling the story of Ms. Karr's adolescence. The author's voice is as strong as ever, and the cast of characters as interesting. I especially enjoyed the nuanced descriptions Karr gives of her relationships with friends. As a reader, I am so glad this lonely girl had friends, but I also appreciated the truth the author tells in the very real, if sometimes subtle, streaks of codependency that color even the best of high school friendships. Once again, Ms. Karr refuses to romanticize the characters in her life story. If she gets close at any point it is with the motley crew of friends she travels with during her late teen years. This was my least favorite part of any of her memoir writings - it felt a bit rushed, and, perhaps, the least internalized. I suspect the sort of "unreal" quality of the writing could be the result of the drugs.

In all, I'd recommend every single thing Mary Karr writes. Her story - and the broken-but-being-healed voice in which she tells it - is a gift to all of us trying to make sense of our own lives.

Kids in distressed families are great repositories of silence and carry in their bodies whole arctic wastelands of words not to be uttered, stories not to be told.