A review by jasjadeserrano
Cherry by Mary Karr

4.0

"Our own features in youth have not yet been sharply carved. So in some way, we don't exist yet. Thus we mock ourselves for loving so easily and in the process choke the breath from our first darlings."

I've read some memoirs that read like essays and others that read like novels; Cherry fits in with the latter. Karr's prose is lyrical, and her mastery of descriptive detail is impressive -- so impressive, that I wonder if it isn't her memories per se she describes, but an embellished adult interpretation of her childhood. Regardless, it's a powerful and relatable coming-of-age-story.

Karr's life in small town Leechfield is at once unique and universal. Her retellings of her first crush, her first kiss, her first experience with desire, her estrangement from her peers, her realization as a child that "suddenly and deeply, these two boys are not like me" -- they all feel intimately familiar, as if she is describing your own memories back to you, finally finding words for the inexplicable. Her past traumas, family dysfunctions, and experiences with drugs belong to her alone, but even still, she manages to find truth in them that ring in you like a bell.

Karr is a sharp-witted and charming storyteller. I look forward to reading her other memoirs.