Rating: 
Summary: Karr's childhood evokes horror, laughter and wisdom
Review: If Scout Finch, the spunky heroine of To Kill a Mockingbird, had been raised by a pack of dysfunctionals, her childhood might have resembled that of Mary Karr's. Karr's matter of fact recounting of a life that no child should have to remember alternately shocks and amuses. It brought back some harrowing memories of my own childhood. Karr is to be commended for looking upon her parents' problems, which range from the idiosyncratic to the truly frightening, with empathy, humor and compassion. Her older, protective sister's story would also be worth hearing. I was chilled at times by the quasi-adulthood forced upon the older sister, and touched by her caretaking of younger sister Mary. The "adult fights" these two sisters share now, with one screaming "You were always so F-----ing cute!" And the other shooting back, "Well, you were always so F----ing competent!" resonates with the truth of the complicated, multi-layered relationships that most siblings share. That these two siblings seem to have survived this childhood at all, much less that one has written about it so well, is truly a miracle. At the end of this book I wanted to call up Mary Karr and congratulate her, weep with her, and put my arms around her
Rating:
Summary: This is the best of the current memoir genre.
Review: I have been working my way through the current women's memoir genre. With no thanks to the libraries and the bookstores...since some of them are classified under true crime (The Dead Girl, Spoken in Darkness), some biography (the Kiss,) and some Memoirs. So far, the Liar's Club has been the best. There is a surprise ending which I am glad none of the reviews so far has spoiled. Many of these books end with a reconciliation with Mom or Dad, but no ending comes close to the one in the Liar's Club. I can't believe people are asking "Why was this book written?" Don't they have leftover resentments of their parents due in part to a "missing piece of the puzzle?" It was written to make us realize that our whole lives can be wasted mucking around in the dark, in pain and misunderstanding, even hating ourselves, when the life-solving truth was right there and just waited on some barriers to be broken down. It also showed how one decision can effect an entire life and the lives beyond it. It also showed that some things that shape our lives can be healed.
Why read this book? There might be a life-liberating truth that waits for each of us to search and find. If you liked the Liar's Club, I could also recommend Spoken in Darkness, Grown Up Fast, The Kiss, Drinking: A Love Story (very good!) I do not recommend The Dead Girl, but Spoken in Darkness instead (A writer goes back home to look up what actually happened to her schoolgirl friend, who ended up murdered.
Rating:
Summary: THIS IS A DAMN GOOD BOOK
Review: I am quite suspicious as I read the following "reviews of the book The Liar's Club. What makes me suspicious is the predominant rating of 4. Mary Karr has written an often uncomfortable book, but one worthy of telling. I enjoyed her prose, her story and give her much credit. Several people herien ask the strange question of why did she write this book. A writer writes. IF you can do a better job then get it published and let us see it and review it as well. Mary if you read these reviews, you have a fan in Colorado. I know from your book it is probably not a place you are too anxious to visit but if you are ever through the Denver area, let's have a cup of coffee at the Tattered Cover Bookstore. I would be honored
Rating:
Summary: My women's book group loved it!
Review: Karr's memoir is tragic, yet funny, but it's not the kind of funny that is trying too hard. It brought back my own childhood, not so much in the actual events, but in the poignant way the author expressed what was happening from a child's point of view, e.g., distorting her vision by half-closing her eyes and looking through her eye lashes . . . She helped me remember things I hadn't thought about since I was a kid. Several women in my book club expressed amazement that one could survive a childhood like Karr's and be sane enough to write about it so eloquently. I think Karr showed us exactly how, humor! Great book
Rating:
Summary: Tough and ruthless
Review: In the hard-scrabble world of oil and families, Karr's autobiography provides the perfect antedote to that soupy nostalgia so despressingly hackneyed in much Southern writing. Her characters are, thank God, not homespun philosophers who chatter away about table linens in deeply symbolic ways. They are ruthless rubes who cut a wide swath through each other's lives. And Karr is the most ruthless of the bunch, impaling her family, her culture, with her incisor wit. She is not chewing over her past. She's tearing off great globs of it and spitting it out
Rating:
Summary: Totally entertaining book, best book I've read all year.
Review: Nobody has a perfect childhood and Mary Karr reminds us how we can find humor in bad situations. If we all looked for meaning in every "tragic" event, we'd all be in therapy. Although Karr's childhood may appear horrible to some, I laughed my way through the whole book. I gave it to my mother who disagreed with me. She was so upset by the grandmother scenes that she couldn't finish it. But then she doesn't think some of my childhood memories are funny either. I thank Mary Karr for writing a memoir that is not solely therapy for her, but is actually an entertaining piece of valuable work. Thanks
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting Book
Review: The SeniorNet On-line Book Club read and discussed the Liars Club in December 1996. The following is an excerpt from our reviews. (http://www.seniornet.org/index.html)
This was a tough book to read. I found the author's account of her youth amazing in many ways. The memory, the detail ,the clarity of it all is quite remarkable. She took me to places I didn't want to go, see and hear things I didn't want to be part of. I felt dehydrated just reading about that hellhole of a town in Texas, it made me crawl, so did much of the description and many of the characters. But you know what even though I grew up in a far better place, one with out the brutality, the filth, the poverty, the language ,... by far a more privileged existence , there were times when I could identify with what was happening in that story as well as with the characters involved. That's a lesson I learn over and over again, peel us down deep enough and we as human beings at a very basic level , are not that uniquely different from one another. (Helen
Rating: 
Summary: Haunting story of a girl growing up in the south.
Review: This story raises questions about relationships with a mad
mother, ineffectual father, and trusting sister. Does
Mary exaggerate the truth when relating events that
surround her growing up? This story will encourage the
reader to ask questions about their families and secrets.
Rating:
Summary: Humorous, touching, vivid memoir of a troubled childhood
Review: My book club read this book in October. We were impressed by the vivid and touching recollections of the author. There were sections that were hilarious, some violent, some touching, some mystifying. It is a surprisingly fast read, perhaps because Ms. Karr engages the reader so honestly in her life. There seems to be nothing that she holds back, and is willing to reveal everything about herself, her parents, her sister, and all the other people who shaped her tragic, but triumphant life.
If I have a criticism of the book, it would be that the recollections are at times too vivid, and I wonder if some of them really happened. But as Hermann Hesse once wrote, the third dimension of history is always fiction, and if this is how Ms. Karr remembers it, then this is how it must have happened. I would look forward to reading a sequel of this book, as I am very interested in knowing what has happened to all those people (the ones still alive, that is) who came to life in this book, especially her sister Lisa. Lisa is described in the book as having grown up to be a very conservative business person, and I'd like to know who influenced her. Her childhood was as tough as Mary's.
I'd recommend this book highly, especially if you are going on vacation somewhere. It isn't light reading but you won't want to put it down, so the more uninterrupted time you have with this book, the better you will enjoy it
Rating:
Summary: I likexd the way she expressed herself
Review: It was a good book and I loved some of the lies she told and what her life was like before and after she told a li
|
