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A review by ingridostby
You All Grow Up and Leave Me: A Memoir of Teenage Obsession by Piper Weiss
4.0
This is an incredible book that defies genres—a memoir that reads like a novel with [real] true crime woven in here and there. It is not "true crime." It is filled with authentic 90s specifics that forced me back into time and filled me with nostalgia. I appreciated the true crime *elements*, I loved the prose (which were exquisitely read in the audiobook) and I was moved by reading about a woman, and a girl, who grew up in the 90s never feeling good enough. It's incredibly relatable and poignant—I know all too well how it was to be a girl then. I know what it was like to, because of being raised in that era, struggle with self esteem and with not being popular, with losing friends, with wanting to be an adult's favorite, with being sexualized and wanting but not wanting to be sexualized, of being raised to accept a certain degree of sexualization, disrespect, bullying. All of this is covered, and poetically, in the book.
I know what it is like to be a victim of horrific crimes because I am a woman, and many women know what that's like. Most women can also relate to being a young girl coming of age in a world that is particularly patriarchal and predatory, a world in which we don't quite understand stalking and don't quite believe women when they say they are being stalked, a world that has endless amounts of men who believe you to be an object for their fantasies, who feel entitled to your space, who are convinced they are superior and see no issue to use you to fill their emotional voids and complement their neuroses. Piper was a victim of all of that, as were all of "Gary's girls." Varying degrees of victimhood exist. When you are in the network of a predator, you are already in his net, by his design.
I know what it is like to be a victim of horrific crimes because I am a woman, and many women know what that's like. Most women can also relate to being a young girl coming of age in a world that is particularly patriarchal and predatory, a world in which we don't quite understand stalking and don't quite believe women when they say they are being stalked, a world that has endless amounts of men who believe you to be an object for their fantasies, who feel entitled to your space, who are convinced they are superior and see no issue to use you to fill their emotional voids and complement their neuroses. Piper was a victim of all of that, as were all of "Gary's girls." Varying degrees of victimhood exist. When you are in the network of a predator, you are already in his net, by his design.