The Circuit

The Circuit: Stories from the Life of a Migrant Child

by Francisco Jimenez

Genre: Juvenile Fiction, Memoir

Synopsis:  These independent but intertwined stories follow a migrant family through their circuit, from picking cotton and strawberries to topping carrots-and back again-over a number of years.  As it moves from one labor camp to the next, the little family of four grows into ten.  Impermanence and poverty decline their lives.  But with faith, hope, and back-breaking work, the family endures.

from the back of the book

Review:  This book tells the story of Francisco and his family as they cross the border and move into their migrant worker life in California.  The family has hope that their life will be better in the United States.  Francisco tells an honest story about what it was like to move from one farm to another and live in tents or run down buildings.  He talks about attending school but being uprooted all the time and not being able to understand the language. But he also talks about the bond among his family members.  This book is eye opening to what migrant workers both adults and children live through.  I thought the ending was a bit abrupt and I want to know what happened in the rest of Francisco's childhood.  There are 2 more books so I may have to pick them up!

Rating: 4 stars

The Sound of Gravel

The Sound of Gravel

by Ruth Wariner

Genre: Memoir

Synopsis:  Ruth Wariner was the thirty-ninth of her father's forty-two children. Growing up on a farm in rural Mexico, where authorities turn a blind eye to the practices of her community.  Ruth lives in a ramshackle house without indoor plumbing or electricity.  At church, preachers teach that God will punish the wicked by destroying the world and that women can only ascend to Heaven by entering into polygamous marriages and giving birth to as many children as possible.  After Ruth's father--the man who had been the founding prophet of the colony--is brutally murdered by his brother in a bid for church power, her mother remarries, becoming the second wife of a another faithful congregant.

In need of government assistance and supplemental income, Ruth and her siblings are carted back and forth between Mexico and the United States, where Ruth's mother collects welfare and her stepfather works a variety of odd jobs.  Ruth comes to love the time she spends in the States, realizing that perhaps the community into which she was born is not the right one for her.  As she begins to doubt her family's beliefs and question her mother's choices, she struggles to balance her fierce love for her siblings with her determination to forge a better life for herself.

from the book jacket

Review:  This is going to be a hard review to write without giving anything away that is not included in the synopsis.  Yes, this is a book about a girl who grew up in poverty and squalor in a polygamous community but yet this is also a book about another topic that is not mentioned in the synopsis and that topic plays a large role in shaping Ruth, her relationships, her family, and her ultimate decision to leave LeBaron.  Ruth tells about her childhood in a somewhat matter of fact way without asking the reader to pity her.  I spent a lot of the book wondering why any woman would choose to live in polygamy and be brainwashed by the doctrine but as an outsider it will be something that I will never understand.  I very much disliked Ruth's mother, Kathy, for the choices she made and how much she overlooked what was happening with her children and failed to defend them.  Tragedies happened that could have been prevented (at least in my mind) which made me angrier at Kathy.  Ruth, however, was able to love her mother despite everything and learn from her.  I was amazed at Ruth's strength, commitment to her family, and ability to persevere.  She amazingly escaped from her life in the LeBaron community and raised her younger siblings even though she was only 15 years old herself.  This story is captivating, hard to read at times, emotional, and ends on a positive note.

Rating: 4 stars

El Deafo

El Deafo

by Cece Bell

Genre: Juvenile Fiction, Graphic Novel, Memoir

Synopsis:  Starting at a new school is scary, even more so with a giant hearing aid strapped to your chest! At her old school, everyone in Cece's class was deaf. Here she is different. She is sure the kids are staring at the Phonic Ear, the powerful aid that will help her hear her teacher. Too bad it also seems certain to repel potential friends. 

Then Cece makes a startling discovery. With the Phonic Ear she can hear her teacher not just in the classroom, but anywhere her teacher is in school--in the hallway...in the teacher's lounge...in the bathroom! This is power. Maybe even superpower! Cece is on her way to becoming El Deafo, Listener for All. But the funny thing about being a superhero is that it's just another way of feeling different... and lonely. Can Cece channel her powers into finding the thing she wants most, a true friend?

This funny perceptive graphic novel memoir about growing up hearing impaired is also an unforgettable book about growing up, and all the super and super embarrassing moments along the way.

from GoodReads

Review:  I'm still not a huge fan of graphic novels but I can see how this book, both story and format, would highly appeal to kids.  This is a semi-autobiographic novel of Cece's life growing up with hearing loss.  Cece, who is portrayed as a bunny, gets sick as a young child and loses most of her hearing but hearing aids and learning to lip read help her continue to be successful in a hearing environment.  Cece is so self conscious about sticking out and being different that sometimes she doesn't realize that people are overlooking the hearing aids.  This book is funny but also sends a powerful message about accepting differences.  While it is an easy book to read, I think it would be most meaningful to slightly older kids--perhaps around 4th grade. 

Rating: 4 stars

Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant?

Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant?

by Roz Chast

Genre: Memoir, Graphic Novel

Synopsis:  In her first memoir, Roz Chast brings her signature wit to the topic of aging parents. Spanning the last several years of their lives and told through four-color cartoons, family photos, and documents, and a narrative as rife with laughs as it is with tears, Chast's memoir is both comfort and comic relief for anyone experiencing the life-altering loss of elderly parents.

When it came to her elderly mother and father, Roz held to the practices of denial, avoidance, and distraction. But when Elizabeth Chast climbed a ladder to locate an old souvenir from the "crazy closet"—with predictable results—the tools that had served Roz well through her parents' seventies, eighties, and into their early nineties could no longer be deployed.

While the particulars are Chast-ian in their idiosyncrasies—an anxious father who had relied heavily on his wife for stability as he slipped into dementia and a former assistant principal mother whose overbearing personality had sidelined Roz for decades—the themes are universal: adult children accepting a parental role; aging and unstable parents leaving a family home for an institution; dealing with uncomfortable physical intimacies; managing logistics; and hiring strangers to provide the most personal care.

An amazing portrait of two lives at their end and an only child coping as best she can, Can't We Talk about Something More Pleasant will show the full range of Roz Chast's talent as cartoonist and storyteller.

from GoodReads

Review:  I went into this book being a little dubious about graphic novels as they are not my normal cup of tea.  My library was challenging patrons to read books in a format that they don't normally read for the summer reading program.  This book was recommended to me by one of the librarians saying that it is appealing to everyone and bittersweet.  I'm a big fan of memoirs and I think that helped me like this book even though it is in a format that is quite different for me.  I did have trouble connecting with the main character as she did not seem to have a close relationship with her parents and that she had a hard time taking charge of the situation.  I also wonder if I'm not the right target audience for this book as, knock on wood, I'm a ways away from dealing with this situation.  Chast is pretty brutally honest in this memoir but she does so with humor but also we feel her sadness for having to acknowledge that her parents have become elderly.  I think this is a well written graphic novel memoir and that readers in the right phase of their life would really appreciate this book.

Rating: 3 stars

Cherries in Winter

Cherries in Winter

Suzan Colon

Genre: Memoir

Summary (from Goodreads): What is the secret to finding hope in hard times?

When Suzan Colón was laid off from her dream job at a magazine during the economic downturn of 2008, she needed to cut her budget way, way back, and that meant home cooking. Her mother suggested, “Why don’t you look in Nana’s recipe folder?” In the basement, Suzan found the tattered treasure, full of handwritten and meticulously typed recipes, peppered with her grandmother Matilda’s commentary in the margins. Reading it, Suzan realized she had found something more than a collection of recipes—she had found the key to her family’s survival through hard times.

Suzan began re-creating Matilda’s “sturdy food” recipes for baked pork chops and beef stew, and Aunt Nettie’s clam chowder made with clams dug up by Suzan’s grandfather Charlie in Long Island Sound. And she began uncovering the stories of her resilient family’s past. Taking inspiration from stylish, indomitable Matilda, who was the sole support of her family as a teenager during the Great Depression (and who always answered “How are you?” with “Fabulous, never better!”), and from dashing, twice-widowed Charlie, Suzan starts to approach her own crisis with a sense of wonder and gratitude. It turns out that the gift to survive and thrive through hard times had been bred in her bones all along.

Cherries in Winter is an irresistible gem of a book. It makes you want to cook, it makes you want to know your own family’s stories, and, above all, it makes you feel rich no matter what.

Review: This was a quick and interesting read about a magazine writer who lost her job during the recession of 2008.  She used her newfound free time to delve into her family's history, discovering that the women in her family were used to dealing with hard economic times.  Colón linked the past and the present using recipes, but food didn't feel like the primary focus of the book.  Instead, the author took her readers on a journey through the past, learning about her grandparents and great-grandparents, and how they made do with what they had.  Few people that I know were affected by the economic downturn in 2008, so it was educational to read about well-off New Yorkers who suddenly found themselves living on one salary instead of two.  I was a little frustrated that the author made a big deal of saying that she could no longer shop at Whole Foods and that she had to turn her heat down (to a temperature that's still higher than I keep my heat at!).  I have to believe the average person is already living their life the way that Colón did after she was laid off, and for her to make a big deal of it was a little patronizing.

Rating: 3 stars

Breakfast at Sally's

Breakfast at Sally's

Ruta Sepetys

Genre: Memoir

Summary (from Goodreads): One day, Richard LeMieux had a happy marriage, a palatial home, and took $40,000 Greek vacations. The next, he was living out of a van with only his dog, Willow, for company. This astonishingly frank memoir tells the story of one man's resilience in the face of economic disaster. Penniless, a failed suicide, estranged from his family, and living "the vehicular lifestyle" in Washington state, LeMieux chronicles his journey from the Salvation Army kitchens to his days with "C"—a philosopher in a homeless man's clothing—to his run-ins with Pastor Bob and other characters he meets on the streets. Along the way, he finds time to haunt public libraries and discover his desire to write.

LeMieux's quiet determination and his almost pious willingness to live with his situation are only a part of this politically and socially charged memoir. The real story of an all-too-common American condition, this is a heartfelt and stirring read.

Review: I am of two minds about this book.  On the one hand, it is a well-written, relatively easy to read book about homelessness, a subject that most Americans never really think about.  The author brings to life many different types of homeless people, including women and children and entire families.  He presents some of the reasons why people face homelessness, including depression and other mental health issues, and touches on the difficulties that the destitute can face in trying to find an affordable place to live.  In short, he encourages readers to address their own thoughts and stereotypes about the homeless, and think about how they can help in their own communities.

On the other hand, I found myself a bit skeptical about LeMieux's journey - he mentions many times that he was a rich man with everything he could ask for, and then suddenly he is living in his van and his children have refused to help him.  I couldn't help but wonder why.  What did he do that was so terrible that his children have abandoned him?  He doesn't mention that at all in the story.  And he mentions that he couldn't find a job - why not?  Because of his depression, or his age, or his general desire to not have to work?  Additionally, he and his friends seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time hanging out at someone's place watching TV and smoking marijuana.  It's a little frustrating that he details this part of homelessness while also saying that people who spend their time working at a job should donate more of their time and money to help homeless people.

I wanted to love this book because of its ability to encourage readers to think differently about homeless people and housing and food challenges in their communities, but it fell a little short.

Rating: 3.5 stars

Hope: A Memoir of Survival in Cleveland

Hope: A Memoir of Survival in Cleveland

by Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus

with Mary Jordan and Kevin Sullivan

Genre: Memoir, Nonfiction

Synopsis:  On May 6, 2013, Amanda Berry made headlines around the world when she fled a Cleveland home and called 911, saying: "Help me, I'm Amanda Berry...I've been kidnapped, and I've been missing for ten years."

A horrifying story rapidly unfolded.  Ariel Castro, a local school bus driver, had separately lured Berry and two other young women, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight, to his home, where he trapped them and kept them chained.  In the decade that followed, the three were frequently raped, psychologically abused, and threatened with death if they attempted to escape.  Years after she was taken, Berry had a daughter by their captor, a child she bravely raised as normally as possible under impossible conditions.

Drawing upon their recollections and the diary kept by Amanda Berry, Berry and Gina DeJesus describe the unimaginable torment they suffered and the strength and resourcefulness that enabled them to survive.  Pulitzer-Prize winning Washington Post reporters Mary Jordan and Kevin Sullivan interweave the events within Castro's house with original reporting on the efforts to find the missing girls.  The full story behind the headlines-including details never previously released on Castro's life and motivations-Hope is a harrowing yet inspiring chronicle of two women whose courage and ingenuity ultimately delivered them back to their lives and families.

from the book jacket

Review:  I don't know why but I find memoirs such as these very intriguing.  I really love to see how people overcome such horrible tragedies, maintain positive attitudes and hope, and move on with their lives with such positivity and determination.  I certainly wish that things like this never happened to anyone and I am so glad that the end result was freedom.  These two women showed their strength over and over again in this book and I admire them and the survivors that they are.  Amanda and Gina speak frankly about what their lives were like during the ten years (for Amanda) that they were held captive.  The entries are written from journal entries that Amanda kept so most of the story is written in short snippets.  Between the journal entries from Amanda and Gina were short articles and stories written from the outside perspective.  The writing style in both the diary entries and the short articles is fairly simplistic and I had to remind myself that Amanda was abducted at the age of 16 and Gina at the age of 14 and therefore unfortunately missed out on schooling (Gina mentions late in the book after she escaped that she didn't finish 7th grade so she had to make up a lot of education at the age of 23 so she could finish high school).  I do wish that Michelle Knight would have co-authored the book as well so we could have gotten her perspective of being in the house but I may need to read her book to hear her side and what happened to her since she was held captive the longest.

Rating: 4 stars

Kabul Beauty School

Kabul Beauty School

by Deborah Rodriguez

Genre: Memoir

Synopsis:  Soon after the fall of the Taliban, in 2001, Deborah Rodriguez went to Afghanistan as part of a group offering humanitarian aid to this war-torn nation.  Surrounded by men and women whose skills-as doctors, nurses, and therapists-seemed eminently more practical than her own, Rodriguez, a hairdresser and mother of two from Michigan, despaired of being of any real use.  Yet she soon found she had a gift for befriending Afghans, and once her profession became known she was eagerly sought out by Westerners desperate for a good haircut and by Afghan women, who have a long and proud tradition of running their own beauty salons.  Thus an idea was born.

With the help of corporate and international sponsors, the Kabul Beauty School welcomed its first class in 2003.  Well meaning but sometimes brazen, Rodriguez stumbled through language barriers, overstepped cultural customs, and constantly juggled the challenges of a postwar nation even as she learned how to empower her students to become their families' breadwinners by learning the fundamentals of coloring techniques, haircutting, and makeup.

Yet within the small haven of the beauty school, the line between teacher and student quickly blurred as these vibrant women shared with Rodriguez their stories and their hearts; the newlywed who faked her virginity on her wedding night, the twelve-year-old bride sold into marriage to pay her family's debts, the Taliban member's wife who pursued her training despite her husband's constant beatings.  Through these and other stories, Rodriguez found the strength to leave her own unhealthy marriage and allow herself to love again, Afghan style.

from the book jacket

Review:  This was such a fascinating look into women's lives in Afghanistan and how one woman helped women learn a skill to make money for their families.  Rodriguez seemed to have such a passion for what she was doing.  There were some heartbreaking stories as well as humorous ones as Rodriguez tried to navigate the cultural differences.  This memoir was written in such an easy to read way that this book just few by.  There were times that I was confused by the time line of the story.  I think that Rodriguez jumped around a but and that threw me off.  Rodriguez had a big personality that seemed to serve her sometimes well in Afghanistan but sometimes not.  She did break quite a few cultural norms and didn't always seem to be remorseful about it.  But overall a good read!

Rating: 4 stars

Furiously Happy

Furiously Happy
A Funny Book About Horrible Things

Jenny Lawson

Genre: Memoir

Summary (from Goodreads): In LET'S PRETEND THIS NEVER HAPPENED, Jenny Lawson baffled readers with stories about growing up the daughter of a taxidermist. In her new book, FURIOUSLY HAPPY, Jenny explores her lifelong battle with mental illness. A hysterical, ridiculous book about crippling depression and anxiety? That sounds like a terrible idea. And terrible ideas are what Jenny does best.

According to Jenny: "Some people might think that being 'furiously happy' is just an excuse to be stupid and irresponsible and invite a herd of kangaroos over to your house without telling your husband first because you suspect he would say no since he's never particularly liked kangaroos. And that would be ridiculous because no one would invite a herd of kangaroos into their house. Two is the limit. I speak from personal experience. My husband says that none is the new limit. I say he should have been clearer about that before I rented all those kangaroos."

"Most of my favorite people are dangerously fucked-up but you'd never guess because we've learned to bare it so honestly that it becomes the new normal. Like John Hughes wrote in The Breakfast Club, 'We're all pretty bizarre. Some of us are just better at hiding it.' Except go back and cross out the word 'hiding.'"

Jenny's first book, LET'S PRETEND THIS NEVER HAPPENED, was ostensibly about family, but deep down it was about celebrating your own weirdness. FURIOUSLY HAPPY is a book about mental illness, but under the surface it's about embracing joy in fantastic and outrageous ways-and who doesn't need a bit more of that?

Review: It's amazing that someone can write a hilariously funny book about depression and anxiety disorder, but that's exactly what Lawson has done.  She depicts the joys of living a quiet life at home with her family, the frustrations and amusements of disagreeing with her husband, the nervousness and fun of traveling around the world, and the crushing darkness of falling into depression.  What I loved best (besides the delightful bizarreness of her obsession with taxidermied animals) was  when she talked about all the people who commented on her blog because they related to her mental illnesses and were glad to realize that they were not alone.  How amazing that one woman's writing about her life was able to convince 14 people not to commit suicide!

Rating: 5 stars

When Breath Becomes Air

When Breath Becomes Air

Paul Kalanithi

Genre: Memoir

Summary (from Goodreads): For readers of Atul Gawande, Andrew Solomon, and Anne Lamott, a profoundly moving, exquisitely observed memoir by a young neurosurgeon faced with a terminal cancer diagnosis who attempts to answer the question What makes a life worth living?
 
At the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade’s worth of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. One day he was a doctor making a living treating the dying, and the next he was a patient struggling to live. Just like that, the future he and his wife had imagined evaporated. When Breath Becomes Air, which features a Foreword by Dr. Abraham Verghese and an Epilogue by Kalanithi’s wife, Lucy, chronicles Kalanithi’s transformation from a naïve medical student “possessed,” as he wrote, “by the question of what, given that all organisms die, makes a virtuous and meaningful life” into a young neurosurgeon at Stanford, guiding patients toward a deeper understanding of death and illness, and finally into a patient and a new father to a baby girl, confronting his own mortality.

What makes life worth living in the face of death? What do you do when the future, no longer a ladder toward your goals in life, flattens out into a perpetual present? What does it mean to have a child, to nurture a new life as another fades away? These are some of the questions Kalanithi wrestles with in this profoundly moving, exquisitely observed memoir.

Paul Kalanithi died in March 2015, while working on this book, yet his words live on as a guide and a gift to us all. “I began to realize that coming face to face with my own mortality, in a sense, had changed nothing and everything,” he wrote. “Seven words from Samuel Beckett began to repeat in my head: ‘I can’t go on. I’ll go on.’” When Breath Becomes Air is an unforgettable, life-affirming reflection on the challenge of facing mortality and on the relationship between doctor and patient, from a gifted writer who became both.

Marcie's Review: A hauntingly beautiful book written by a neurosurgeon diagnosed with terminal lung cancer.  It is obvious that the author had once studied literature, since his words are written simplistically, yet imbued with a heart rending poetry.  I was surprised that so much of the book was devoted to his earlier years; for some reason I thought it would primarily focus on the lessons he learned while dying.  Be prepared to cry while reading this one.

Becky's Review:  I really enjoy memoirs as they give me a peek into other people's lives and how they live.  The look into med school and being a doctor was not one that I needed to read about.  I have no interest in hearing about cadavers being cut open.  The book is divided into 2 parts-one before his diagnosis and one after.  The part before was slow and to me uninteresting since it was full of his life in medicine, something of which I really don't need to know details of.  I constant put this book down in the first chapter even though he did have a poetic way of writing and seemed very introspective.  The whole book was also very philosophical where the author delved into the meaning of what he was doing and how he was living and the meaning behind things.  It got too heavy for me and I skimmed so I could read more about his life and what was happening to him.  My favorite part of the book was the epilogue that was written by his wife.  That is the part that made me tear up.  She did mention that Paul worked on the book after his diagnosis before he passed away and it was unfinished.  To me, that explained a lot about the book and its organization.  Maybe the problem I had with this book is that I am not a very existential person and Paul certainly was.

Marcie's Rating: 4,5 stars

Becky's Rating: 3 stars

Does This Beach Make Me Look Fat?

Does This Beach Make Me Look Fat?

Lisa Scottoline & Francesca Serritella

Genre: Memoir - Humor

Summary (from Goodreads): The unstoppable, irreverent mother-daughter team presents a new collection of funny stories and true confessions that every woman can relate to. From identity theft to the hazards of bicycling to college reunions and eating on the beach, Lisa and Francesca tackle the quirks, absurdities, and wonders of everyday life with wit and warmth. As Lisa says, "More and more, especially in the summertime when I'm sitting on the beach, I'm learning not to sweat it. To go back to the child that I used to be. To see myself through the loving eyes of my parents. To eat on the beach. And not to worry about whether every little thing makes me look fat. In fact, not to worry at all."


So put aside your worries and join Lisa and Francesca as they navigate their way through the crazy world we live in, laughing along the way.

Review: I would never have picked this book up, but it was recommended by the adult services librarian when I went to ask for a good book to read (after she had suggested about 30 that I had already read).  Each chapter is very short, I believe reprinted from a newspaper column that both women write for, written by either Lisa or Francesca.  I suppose I should have suspected this would be the case, given the title, but too many of the chapters dealt with food or body image for my liking - I had been hoping that the title was just designed to catch your eye, and that most of the book would be unrelated.  While I recognized myself in some of the articles, I didn't have much in common with the twenty-something woman with dating woes or the fifty-something twice-divorced woman with no love life and a dying mother.  And I didn't find very much of the book funny.  I guess I just am not the target audience for these writers.

Rating: 2 stars

I Will Always Write Back

I Will Always Write Back: How One Letter Changed Two Lives

Caitlin Alifirenka & Martin Ganda
with Liz Welch

Genre: Young Adult

Summary (from Goodreads): The true story of an all-American girl and a boy from an impoverished city in Zimbabwe and the letter that changed both of their lives forever.

It started as an assignment. Everyone in Caitlin's class wrote to an unknown student somewhere in a distant place. All the other kids picked countries like France or Germany, but when Caitlin saw Zimbabwe written on the board, it sounded like the most exotic place she had ever heard of--so she chose it.
Martin was lucky to even receive a pen pal letter. There were only ten letters, and forty kids in his class. But he was the top student, so he got the first one.

That letter was the beginning of a correspondence that spanned six years and changed two lives.

In this compelling dual memoir, Caitlin and Martin recount how they became best friends --and better people--through letters. Their story will inspire readers to look beyond their own lives and wonder about the world at large and their place in it.

Marcie's Review: This is the inspirational story of how an upper middle class girl and her family from America help a destitute Zimbabwean boy achieve his dreams of education.  Reading that sentence I just wrote makes it seem like this book has a white-savior complex going on, and it does, but the authors are careful to emphasize how close a friendship they shared in order to make friendship the biggest theme in the book.  It is also obvious that Caitlin grew from a shallow and spoiled middle schooler into a caring and generous high schooler, and that this personal growth was due in large part to her friendship with Martin.

I find it difficult to believe that some of the letters were written by children - they are obviously unusually talented at writing and sharing their deepest emotions.  

As I was reading, I kept wondering what I would do if my child told me that she wanted to send money to her penpal overseas.  I fear that I would be skeptical and worry that she was falling for some kind of scam, but I can only hope that I would respond as generously as Caitlin and her family and make a huge difference in a child's life.

Marcie's Rating: 4 stars

Becky's Review:  I loved reading this story about how Caitlin and Martin became friends through letters and how they helped each other become the people they are today.  They began writing letters when they were in middle school and at first their letters were about music they like and other surface topics.  Martin became desperate because of the poverty that he and his family lived in.  Martin knew he needed to stay in school in order to better his life but the family didn't have enough money. He asked Caitlin for help and from there Caitlin's eyes were opened to how privileged her life was and how little Martin's family had.  I was amazed by both families: the generosity that Caitlin's family showed and the positive attitudes Martin's family displayed even in the hardest times.

Becky's Rating: 5 stars

Veronica's Grave

Veronica's Grave

by Barbara Bracht Donsky

Genre: Memoir

Synopsis:  When Barbara Bracht's mother disappears from her life-no one tells her that her mother has died-she is left a confused child whose blue-collar father is intent upon erasing any memory of her mother.  Forced to keep the secret of her mother's existence from her younger brother, Barbara struggles to keep from being crushed under the weight of family secrets as she comes of age and strives to educate herself, despite her father's stance against women's education.

Told with true literacy sensibility, this captivating memoir asks us to consider what it is that parents owe their children, and how far a child need go to make things right for her family.

from the back of the book

Review:  Barbara Donsky tells us the story of her life as she grew up with her family after her mother died.  The memoir is written in such an easy-going way that makes it very fast to read and it made me forget that I was reading the true story of Donsky's life.  At times I thought I was reading an engaging fictional book and I had to stop to remind myself that this story was not made up.  Donsky spends very little time talking about her earliest memories of her mother and the changes that occurred in her early life after her mother "went missing" as she called it in the book.  Most of the story is about Donsky's life growing up in New York City with her father, step-mother (who she called mom) and her two brothers, and then her life after she turns 18 when she manages to escape the clutches of her family. 

While I found the look back at her life and what life was like for a woman in that day and age very captivating, I struggled with understanding the connection to how Donsky felt about her missing mother.  From the title and the summary of the story, I would assume that most of the book is about how Donsky struggled in her life to live without her mother but more of the struggles in the book were those she had with her controlling father.  Donsky does bring up at various times throughout the book about how she felt about living without her mother but those seemed to be more afterthoughts than part of her story.  I very much appreciated the end of the book when Donsky visits her mother's grave and the reflection that she includes about her life and the impact her mother's death had on her feelings and insecurities growing up.  I just wish that these reflections had been a larger part of her story throughout the book rather than just added in the last few pages of the book.

I was sent this book in exchange for an honest, fair review.  Thank you for sending me the book!

Rating: 3.5 stars

Escape

Escape

by Carolyn Jessop with Laura Palmer

Genre: Memoir

Synopsis:  When she was eighteen years old, Carolyn Jessop was coerced into an arranged marriage with a total stranger: a man thirty-two years her senior.  Merril Jessop already had three wives.  But arranged plural marriages were an integral part of Carolyn's heritage: She was born into and raised in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS), the radical offshoot of the Mormon Church that had settled in small communities along the Arizona-Utah border.  Over the next fifteen years, Carolyn had eight children and withstood her husband's psychological abuse and the watchful eyes of his other wives, who were locked in a constant battle for supremacy.

Carolyn's every move was dictated by her husband's whims.  he decided where she lived and how her children would be treated.  He controlled the money she earned as a schoolteacher.  He chose when they had sex; Carolyn could only refuse-at her peril.  For in the FLDS, a wife's compliance with her husband determined how much status both she and her children held in the family.  Carolyn was miserable for years and wanted out, but she know that if she tried to leave and got caught, her children would be taken away from her.  No woman in the country had ever escaped from the FLDS and managed to get her children out, too.  But in 2003, Carolyn chose freedom over fear and fled her home with her eight children.  She had $20 to her name.

Escape exposes a world tantamount to a prison camp, created by religious fanatics who, in the name of God, deprive their followers of the right to make choices, force women to be totally subservient to men, and brainwash children in church-run schools. Against this background, Carolyn Jessop's flight takes on an extraordinary, inspiring power. Not only did she manage a daring escape from a brutal environment, she became the first woman ever granted full custody of her children in a contested suit involving the FLDS.  And in 2006, her reports to the Utah attorney general on church abuses formed a crucial part of the case that led to the arrest of its notorious leader, Warren Jeffs.

from the book jacket

Review: I found this book to be such a (guilty) fascinating look into the lives of people in the FLDS religion.  I say guilty because I feel a bit like a voyeur reading  into a culture that tends to be secretive and guarded.  I also say guilty because I feel like I shouldn't have enjoyed reading so much about her story because she had such an awful experience. But Jessop did air it out for all of us to see so maybe I should feel guilty about looking into her life.

I had a hard time putting this book down because I was so intrigued by the lifestyle.  At times it was hard to remember that this book is a memoir and not fictional.  There were many times that I just couldn't believe what was happening and how people were, in my opinion, completely brainwashed by their doctrine into believing things that make no sense to outsiders.  It was also hard to read about how women and children were treated and how much backstabbing and disrespect there was between husband and wife, between sister wives and between children and mothers.

I appreciated that Jessop included sections about the FLDS religious beliefs so that the reader can attempt to understand why people would stay.  I feel much better informed about FLDS and its break from the Mormon church.  I am so glad that this book moved chronologically through Jessop's life and ended with their life after their escape.  It is good to know what has happened to her family after leaving the FLDS compound.

Rating: 4 stars

Garbage Bag Suitcase

Garbage Bag Suitcase

by Shenandoah Chefalo

Genre: Memoir, Non-fiction

Synopsis: Garbage Bag Suitcase is the true story of Shenandoah Chefalo's wholly dysfunctional journey through a childhood with neglectful, drug-and alcohol addicted parents.  She endured numerous moves in the middle of the night with just minutes to pack, multiple changes in schools, hunger, cruelty, and loneliness.

Finally at the age of 13, Shen had had enough.  After being abandoned by her mother for months at her grandmother's retirement community, she asked to be put into foster care.  Surely she would fare better at a stable home than living with her mother?  It turns out that it was not the storybook ending she had hoped for.  With foster parents more interested in the income received by housing a foster child, Shen was once again neglected emotionally.  The money she earned working at the local grocery store was taken by her foster parents to "cover her expenses."  When a car accident lands her in the hospital with grave injuries and no one came to visit her during her three-week stay, she realizes she is truly all alone in the world.

Overcoming her many adversities, Shen became part of the 3% of all foster care children who get into college, and the 1% who graduate.  She became a successful businesswoman, got married, and had a daughter.  Despite her numerous achievements in life though, she still suffers from the long-term effects of neglect, and the coping skills that she adapted in her childhood are not always productive in her adult life.

Garbage Bag Suitcase is not only the inspiring and hair-raising story of one woman's journey to overcome her desolate childhood, but it also presents grass-root solutions on how to revamp the broken foster care system.

Review:  I appreciated reading this memoir about the author's neglected childhood experiences and subsequent adulthood.  The author was pretty matter of fact about the events in her early life and the effects of the neglect later in her life.  I've read other memoirs about children in foster care and children who had parents who neglected them but none of them included such a frank discussion of how this impacted their later life including their relationships-both love and friendship, money sense, etc.  I found that part of the book very intriguing as well as her suggestions on how to improve foster care.

What I was missing from the book was the emotions.  I prefer memoirs that tug at my heart and really make me feel for the author and this book did not do that for me because the writing was so straightforward and seemed that just the facts were included.  Chefalo's story (the events of her life) in itself causes me to feel angry that no one helped her before the age of 13 when she asked to be placed in foster care but it wasn't the writing style that made me feel these emotions.  I feel that perhaps the purpose of the writing was to open readers' eyes to the flaws in the system, the effects of neglect, and what we can do about the system.  To me, that makes this book a little more narrative non-fiction and less of a memoir.  I did feel a call to continue my inner dialogue about being a foster parent after reading this book which to me makes this book successful.

I was provided a copy of the book by the author in return for my honest review.  Thank you so much for the book!

Rating: 3.5 stars

Alone in Antarctica

Alone in Antarctica

Felicity Aston

Genre: Memoir

Summary (from Goodreads): In the whirling noise of our advancing technological age, we are seemingly never alone, never out-of-touch with the barrage of electronic data and information.

Felicity Aston, physicist and meteorologist, took two months off from all human contact as she became the first woman -- and only the third person in history – to ski across the entire continent of Antarctica alone. She did it, too, with the simple apparatus of cross-country, without the aids used by her prededecessors – two Norwegian men – each of whom employed either parasails or kites.

Aston’s journey across the ice at the bottom of the world asked of her the extremes in terms of mental and physical bravery, as she faced the risks of unseen cracks buried in the snow so large they might engulf her and hypothermia due to brutalizing weather. She had to deal, too, with her emotional vulnerability in face of the constant bombardment of hallucinations brought on by the vast sea of whiteness, the lack of stimulation to her senses as she faced what is tantamount to a form of solitary confinement.

Like Cheryl Strayed’s Wild, Felicity Aston’s Alone in Antarctica becomes an inspirational saga of one woman’s battle through fear and loneliness as she honestly confronts both the physical challenges of her adventure, as well as her own human vulnerabilities.

Marcie's Review:  This woman's journey across Antarctica was fascinating to me; mostly because of the descriptions of the unimaginably strange and beautiful landscape, but also because of the bravery and humility Felicity showed as she strove to become the first woman to ski across Antarctica on her own.  I think she's a little bit crazy for attempting such a dangerous stunt, but I definitely admire her physical strength and the strength of character it took to keep going when facing the formidable unknown.

Marcie's Rating: 4 stars

Becky's Review:  There was something in this book that did not capture my interest for long.  I found this book a little dull and easy to put down.  I often found myself putting the book down to look something up online about Antarctica that she was talking about.  I thought there would be more adventure and maybe a little drama in this book but there really wasn't much which is a good thing for Aston!  I admire her for being able to go off alone and take on such a difficult task.  She honestly shared her struggles and emotions throughout the journey.  I do wish that she would have included map of where she went and the landforms that she was talking about.

Becky's Rating: 3 stars

Wave

Wave

by Sonali Deraniyagala

Genre: Memoir

Synopsis:  On the morning of December 26, 2004, on the southern coast of Sri Lanka, Sonali Deraniyagala lost her parents, her husband, and her two young sons in the tsunami she miraculously survived. In this brave and searingly frank memoir, she describes those first horrifying moments and her long journey since. She has written an engrossing, unsentimental, beautifully poised account: as she struggles through the first months following the tragedy, furiously clenched against a reality that she cannot face and cannot deny; and then, over the ensuing years, as she emerges reluctantly, slowly allowing her memory to take her back through the rich and joyous life she’s mourning, from her family’s home in London, to the birth of her children, to the year she met her English husband at Cambridge, to her childhood in Colombo; all the while learning the difficult balance between the almost unbearable reminders of her loss and the need to keep her family, somehow, still alive within her. 
from GoodReads

Review:  I feel heartless saying this but I didn't really feel anything for the author and her tragic situation.  I cannot even fathom the grief that she has felt from losing her entire family: her husband, children and parents but the author somehow did not evoke any emotions in me.  I felt like the book was a bit robotic and I wanted so much more.  The book was basically a reflection of her life with her family before the tsunami and how empty her life was after it.  Perhaps writing was cathartic for her (at least I hope it was) and she needed to express these stories in writing but it didn't make for a good book.  I would have liked to hear that her emotional state was improving and that she was finally able to look forward but that wasn't there after seven years.  My rating has nothing to do with the experience the author had, it is in the writing style.

Rating: 2 stars

Three More Words

Three More Words

by Ashley Rhodes-Courter

Genre: Memoir

Synopsis:  In the sequel to the New York Times bestselling memoir Three Little Words, Ashley Rhodes-Courter expands on life beyond the foster care system, the joys and heartbreak with a family she's created, and her efforts to make peace with her past.

Ashley Rhodes-Courter spent a harrowing nine years of her life in fourteen different foster homes.  Her memoir, Three Little Words, captivated audiences everywhere and went on to become a New York Times bestseller as well as a movie produced by the team who brought you Twilight.  Now Ashley reveals the nuances of life after foster care: college and its assorted hijinks, including meeting "the one."  Marriage, which began with a beautiful wedding on a boat that was almost hijacked (literally) by some biological family members.  Having kids-from fostering children and the heartbreak of watching them return to destructive environments, to the miraculous joy of blending biological and adopted offspring.

Whether she's overcoming self-image issues, responding to calls for her to run for Senate, or dealing with continuing drama from her biological family, Ashley Rhodes-Courter never fails to impress or inspire with her authentic voice and uplifting message.

Review: At first I wasn't so sure what to think of this book because I felt like the beginning jumped all over the place and I was having a hard time following.  Plus I didn't feel the connection to her continuing story and felt like some aspects of the beginning were very trivial and not connected to her past as a foster child.  Once Rhodes-Courter got married and they decided to become foster parents, the story really picked up for me.  It's heartbreaking to read about the horrors that the children went through before entering foster care and then how they would get shuffled around and ended up in situations that may not have been much improved.  I think Rhodes-Courter does a good job of being honest as to the emotions that a foster parent goes through when finding out the child's story and also when they have to relinquish control of them back to the system.  I appreciated the rest of her story but I liked the first one better.

Rating: 3.5 stars

Orange is the New Black

Orange is the New Black

Piper Kerman

Genre: Memoir

Summary (from Goodreads): With her career, live-in boyfriend and loving family, Piper Kerman barely resembles the rebellious young woman who got mixed up with drug runners and delivered a suitcase of drug money to Europe over a decade ago. But when she least expects it, her reckless past catches up with her; convicted and sentenced to fifteen months at an infamous women's prison in Connecticut, Piper becomes inmate #11187-424. From her first strip search to her final release, she learns to navigate this strange world with its arbitrary rules and codes, its unpredictable, even dangerous relationships. She meets women from all walks of life, who surprise her with tokens of generosity, hard truths and simple acts of acceptance.

Review:  Quite a few reviews of this book focus on how Piper seemed to have such an easy jail sentence because she is white, blonde, educated and cute.  While the term she served in prison did seem to be easier than what I would have imagined, she approached her sentence with a sense of humility and repentance that I found refreshing.  There was surprisingly little drama, fighting and violence in her minimum security prison, and so there wasn't really much drama in her story.  I've only seen one episode of the show, but I suspect I'll like the book better just based on the blatant mean-spiritedness and lesbianism evident in the first episode of the show that just wasn't a big deal in the book.  On a separate note, this book could really make you think about the benefits of a jail sentence for a non-violent criminal, and what could or should be done to improve the punishment for non-violent crimes.  It would be interesting to discuss this book with a book club.

Rating: 4 stars

Bon Appetempt

Bon Appetempt

Amelia Morris

Genre: Memoir

Summary (from Goodreads): When Amelia Morris saw a towering, beautiful chocolate cake in Bon Appétit and took the recipe home to recreate it for a Christmas day brunch she was hosting, it resulted in a terrible (but tasty) mess that had to be served in an oversize bowl. It was also a revelation. Both delicious and damaged, it seemed a physical metaphor for the many curious and unexpected situations she's found herself in throughout her life, from her brief career as a six-year-old wrestler to her Brady Bunch-style family (minus the housekeeper and the familial harmony) to her ill-fated twenty-something job at the School of Rock in Los Angeles. 

As a way to bring order to chaos and in search of a more meaningful lifestyle, she finds herself more and more at home in the kitchen, where she begins to learn that even if the results of her culinary efforts fall well short of the standard set by glossy food magazines, they can still bring satisfaction (and sustenance) to her and her family and friends. 

Full of hilarious observations about food, family, unemployment, romance, and the extremes of modern L.A., and featuring recipes as basic as Toasted Cheerios and as advanced as gâteau de crêpes, BON APPÉTEMPT is sure to resonate with anyone who has tried and failed, and been all the better for it.
 
Review:  I don't even really remember this book, so perhaps I should take a star away for not being memorable. I thought this was a fictional chick-lit type of story, and was a little surprised to find that it was actually a memoir.  Becky, I don't think you'd like this type of memoir though, because the author is basically an ordinary person who started a food blog and then decided to write a memoir.  Some of her stories were funny, some were moving, some were entertaining, but it was mostly a story about her trying to find herself amidst dead-end jobs in LA.  The summary is a little deceitful because she doesn't describe all that many failed attempts at cooking, which would maybe have been fun to read about. 

Rating: 3 stars