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A review by savvylit
Being Lolita: A Memoir by Alisson Wood
dark
emotional
sad
fast-paced
3.5
Alisson Wood writes poignantly about an incredibly difficult experience. Using Lolita and fairytales as a lens for her own experience, Wood is able to ask readers thought-provoking questions about consent, abusive relationships, and manipulation. Why does our culture portray girls with trauma as requiring male saviors? Why do many of the stories we tell encourage women to feel incomplete without a relationship to a man? Why do awful adult men keep preying on teenage girls and how can we stop them before they even begin?
Being Lolita is a compelling and consuming memoir. The book shines in revealing what it's like to survive a predatory and emotionally abusive relationship. I feel as though I have definitely walked away with a better understanding of how our culture has dangerously blurred young women's understanding of consent and power dynamics.
I ultimately rated Being Lolita as 3.5 stars because a large part of the memoir is a critical analysis of Nabokov's Lolita. It is an incredibly well-thought-out analysis and clearly helped Wood on her journey to better understand her own experience. However, the flow between Wood's recounting of her past and the analysis didn't hold my attention as well as I'd hoped. At some point, it felt like the threads of Wood's own experience were dropped in favor of an academic approach. While there's not necessarily anything wrong with that, it seemed disjointed to me as a reader.
Being Lolita is a compelling and consuming memoir. The book shines in revealing what it's like to survive a predatory and emotionally abusive relationship. I feel as though I have definitely walked away with a better understanding of how our culture has dangerously blurred young women's understanding of consent and power dynamics.
I ultimately rated Being Lolita as 3.5 stars because a large part of the memoir is a critical analysis of Nabokov's Lolita. It is an incredibly well-thought-out analysis and clearly helped Wood on her journey to better understand her own experience. However, the flow between Wood's recounting of her past and the analysis didn't hold my attention as well as I'd hoped. At some point, it felt like the threads of Wood's own experience were dropped in favor of an academic approach. While there's not necessarily anything wrong with that, it seemed disjointed to me as a reader.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual violence, Adult/minor relationship, Toxic relationship, and Gaslighting
Moderate: Mental illness, Self harm, and Suicidal thoughts