I am an adult child of an alcoholic father and an abusive and dysfunctional stepmother who ran away from home at sixteen and fell into the wrong crowd in my search for love and family. Yet after years of hard personal work, I have overcome and triumphed over these obstacles to become stable, happy, and successful, in a good marriage, raising a great son in a loving, stable home. I’ve gone on to help and inspire others to do the same, including writing the book Redeemed, A Memoir of a Stolen Childhood.
I loved this book because, for the first time in my life, I understood that I was not the only broken and damaged person in the world.
Because of her honest portrayal, I felt less alone and more like there were other souls out there who understood my fears of not belonging, of not being able to be “good enough,” of not being wanted, and of being ignored by one parent while being belittled, abused, and blamed by the other.
Allison wrote clearly about the effects of poverty on family dynamics and the dysfunctional family and explained to me for the first time why I felt defective and why the rest of the world seemed so normal. It gave me hope.
A profound portrait of family dynamics in the rural South and "an essential novel" (The New Yorker)
"As close to flawless as any reader could ask for . . . The living language [Allison] has created is as exact and innovative as the language of To Kill a Mockingbird and The Catcher in the Rye." -The New York Times Book Review
The publication of Dorothy Allison's Bastard Out of Carolina was a landmark event that won the author a National Book Award nomination and launched her into the literary spotlight. Critics have likened Allison to Harper Lee, naming her the…
In this book, I saw my dysfunctional family mirrored back at me, but his writing was so good it made me laugh at the absurdity of it at the same time.
As a child, I also looked for the ‘why,” as in “Why am I being treated like this,” but with this book, I finally saw that there was no why. It just is…and that made me feel less to blame and more like a victim of circumstance…of other people’s problems.
Although that was still a lot to handle emotionally, it opened a door for me to stop blaming myself, get professional help, and see my troubled childhood as the product of my parent's mistakes. And that was huge.
This is the true story of a boy who wanted to grow up with the Brady Bunch, but ended up living with the Addams Family. Augusten Burroughs's mother gave him away to be raised by her psychiatrist, a dead ringer for Santa Claus and a certifiable lunatic into the bargain. The doctor's bizarre family, a few patients and a sinister man living in the garden shed completed the tableau. The perfect squalor of their dilapidated Victorian house, there were no…
What happens to aid projects after the money is spent? Or the people and communities once the media spotlight has left?
No Dancing, No Dancing follows the return journey of a former aid worker back to the site of three major humanitarian crises—South Sudan, Iraq and East Timor—in search of…
Reading this book left me shocked and heartbroken at how people can be oblivious to how their unconventional parenting and unstable lifestyle affect their children.
I saw firsthand how poverty and turmoil created fearful, insecure children, who like me, were afraid to create new relationships or bonds with outsiders, knowing like they did, that if I got too close, my family or circumstances would embarrass me. Like the protagonist, I had to settle for loneliness.
I saw that her parents weren’t bad, just flawed. A major revelation for me. I saw that I was not alone and that there were all types of weird families out there, but the trauma for the children was the same. I loved it.
Now a major motion picture starring Brie Larson, Naomi Watts and Woody Harrelson.
This is a startling memoir of a successful journalist's journey from the deserted and dusty mining towns of the American Southwest, to an antique filled apartment on Park Avenue. Jeanette Walls narrates her nomadic and adventurous childhood with her dreaming, 'brilliant' but alcoholic parents.
At the age of seventeen she escapes on a Greyhound bus to New York with her older sister; her younger siblings follow later. After pursuing the education and civilisation her parents sought to escape, Jeanette eventually succeeds in her quest for the 'mundane,…
I identified with Tara Westover while reading her memoir because of her secluded and restrictive upbringing. Like her, my upbringing made me feel left out, “other,” different from normal kids, not allowed the usual activities that other kids could do and kept from learning and growing in my own way.
I didn’t understand how these rules affected me until I saw my angst in her own words of isolation, yearning, and rebellion. It gave me hope that our desire for self-fulfillment and actualization is universal and stronger than the people who try, for good reasons or bad, to keep us down.
It is an amazing book. I could barely put it down.
Selected as a book of the year by AMAZON, THE TIMES, SUNDAY TIMES, GUARDIAN, NEW YORK TIMES, ECONOMIST, NEW STATESMAN, VOGUE, IRISH TIMES, IRISH EXAMINER and RED MAGAZINE
'One of the best books I have ever read . . . unbelievably moving' Elizabeth Day 'An extraordinary story, beautifully told' Louise O'Neill 'A memoir to stand alongside the classics . . . compelling and joyous' Sunday Times
Tara Westover grew up preparing for the end of the world. She was never put in school, never taken to the doctor. She did not even have a birth certificate…
When Jennifer Shea married Russel Redmond, they made a decision to spend their honeymoon at sea, sailing in Mexico. The voyage tested their new relationship, not just through rocky waters and unexpected weather, but in all the ways that living on a twenty-six-foot sailboat make one reconsider what's truly important.…
I loved this book because I saw in it how good kids without parents get lost in the sometimes cruel world and how these kids choose to do the wrong thing out of necessity, the need for love.
Like my own life, I saw how relatives and neighbors stand by and watch, unable or unwilling to help these tossed young souls who suffer and struggle to find their way. I could relate to Demon being willing to do almost anything to be loved, and how even when help is given, it can be retracted at any time. Knowing this is not easy when you’re a kid but it’s something to remember.
I found it painfully hard to read at times, yet hopeful that there is always a way out.
Demon's story begins with his traumatic birth to a single mother in a single-wide trailer, looking 'like a little blue prizefighter.' For the life ahead of him he would need all of that fighting spirit, along with buckets of charm, a quick wit, and some unexpected talents, legal and otherwise.
In the southern Appalachian Mountains of Virginia, poverty isn't an idea, it's as natural as the grass grows. For a generation growing up in this world, at the heart of the modern opioid crisis, addiction isn't an abstraction, it's neighbours, parents, and friends. 'Family' could mean love, or reluctant foster…
A rise-from-the-ashes hero’s story of overcoming abuse, trauma, and unbearable odds, of being waylaid by both family and religion’s promise of love, and harnessing the resilience to find the way home. My book offers a rare window into Eastern European immigrant culture and reads like a page-turning thriller.
Especially relevant today, a time when marginalized people are finally finding a voice, this memoir will serve as an inspiration to women and people everywhere, encouraging them to overcome their obstacles and achieve their dreams.
Two women, a century apart, seek to rebuild their lives after leaving their homelands. Arriving in tropical Singapore, they find romance, but also find they haven’t left behind the dangers that caused them to flee.
Haunted by the specter of terrorism after 9/11, Aislinn Givens leaves her New York career…
Lerner's memoir of approaching adulthood in the mid-sixties is deliciously readable, but deceptively breezy. His family is affluent, his school engaging, his friends smart and fun. He has his first car, and drives with abandon. The American moment promises unlimited possibility. But political and cultural upheavals are emerging, and irresistible.…
