Rating: 
Summary: hilarious, sad, poignant
Review: this book remind me of "daisy fay" books. however, this story was pure non-fiction which stabs at your heart the author lived a tough life with a clinacaly insane mother, sickly and grouchy wooden legged granny, adult-minded sister, hard working simpleton dad. from the cancer-ridden oil fields of swampy texas gulf coast, to the beauty of colorado that couldnt hide the strangeness of her family.....this book is a must read for anyone who wants to realise their family or life isnt the only strange one out there. also if you like to people watch, this book has great character development. the authors approach to a sometimes tough life is overlayed with a quiet humor that makes you laugh. at the end, you love her crazy family as much as she does and you see the family ties thayt bond us, while unwanted at some times, are what makes us who we are.
Rating:
Summary: Amazing
Review: This really is a brilliant and amazing book. This is territory already richly mined by Mona Simpson and other terrific authors--with the advantage of fictionalizing--but probably because it is true, this has more impact. The quality of the prose is beyond my ability to comment on. But it is by turns poignant, hilarious, and horrifying. The characters are fleshed out and believable and perfect. It's not a novel, and doesn't read like one, but it's an amazing piece of writing, a masterwork.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful.
Review: This book is amazing. I'm far more glued to the pages than they are to each other. Reading the previous comments, I don't think anyone has done Mary Karr's great sense of humor justice. The Liar's Club is not a downer. It has many more laughing moments than crying moments. Mary Karr has a gift with language. She can be crass, she can be delicate, she can make you cry, she can make you laugh.I do agree with a previous commenter that the second rape scene was a bit over the top. Rape's a big deal, though. There's no way you could write about it without disturbing the reader -- and omitting something as traumatic as rape in a memoir would be out of the question. Admittedly, this book is not for everyone. If you're easily offended or if dark humor does not appeal to you, definitely look elsewhere. For everyone else, though...give this memoir a read! It's a little slow for the first chapter or so, but a lot of it will stay with you years later.
Rating:
Summary: a great read
Review: Mary Karr's memoir of her childhood is a wonderful read. Her story lines are interesting and here writing style beautiful. Karr does magic with a ink and paper, I felt as though I was right next to her, in her kitchen or in the back of their car, with her parents, sister and other cast of characters. Enchanting -- the words are combined into sentences that taste like fine, hand-crafted chocolates that I purchase from the french chocolateer in north beach. Her descriptions of her mother, father and life growing up with a rock 'em, sock 'em, work-yell-and-drink-to-you-puke household are telling of a real survivor -- she reminds me of Bukowski. This book is one to pick up and read.
Rating: 
Summary: The Liars' Club... Amazing!
Review: I really enjoyed this book. As far as autobiographical memoirs go, this one to me, read like fiction. I was almost deterred from it, a quote on the back of the back spoke about her god-awful childhood, and I thought do I really want to read about extremely horrible things? But in my opinion, and maybe it comes from being a twenty something in today's society, but it wasn't extremely god-awful and too horrible to swallow. There are pieces every human on the planet can relate to or at least empathize with. Of course Mary Karr's childhood is not one that anyone would choose, being raised in nowhere Texas with alcoholic parents and definitely her share of traumatic and self making moments. The Liars' Club is beautifully written, with the hand of a poet. She was able to write about her demons and her experiences with grace and humor. I found it to be an enveloping book, hard to put down, you keep wanting to know what waits around the next corner. About what is going to happen to her next. My advice is this: buy Cherry too, so when you're not wanting The Liars's Club to end, you can immediately pick up Cherry, and have a sort of sequel to tack on. A highly recommended piece of good writing.
Rating:
Summary: Puts the "Fun" in Dysfunctional
Review: This is a heart wrenching story of two little girls taking care of their parents. However, the author was one of those little girls and she tells her story with laughter and tears. She puts you on the edge of your seat shaking with furor, describing making martinis for her mother when she and her sister were six and eight years old, feeding it to her in bed and saying, "Drink this honey, you'll feel better.", how they foraged for food in the neighborhood and their neighbors, taking pity on them and feeding them, never having an adult to ask a question to or call upon for support, forget homework or any advice on growing up. Then she has you howling with laughter with something one of them said or did - or just her reaction to this horrible, heartbreaking childhood, that had enough love in it to allow her to not only come out alive but to have the fortitude to write about it.
Fasten your seat belt and read this book. It will give you a lot of ideas on what not to do with your children.
Rating:
Summary: Gritty, gruesome and glorious!
Review: Whether or not the details in Mary's book were entirely true didn't bother me. A child enduring as much trauma as she did is bound to confuse reality with her own perception. I felt her frustration while attempting to fill in the pieces of her mother's and father's past, like an unfinished quilt. Reading about her childhood, I felt raw emotions a 5 to 7 year old might experience as I learned about her harsh, difficult life. Mine wasn't the easiest childhood so I could definitely relate. I appreciated the abscense of self-pity or vindictiveness in her book. Other reviewers were offended by coarse language. I wasn't. I sensed she drew strength and determination from it as a child. Living in a cruel harsh climate with alcoholic parents, with depression hovering in every corner, doesn't leave her much to work with. Many movies use as much foul language or more, and typically nothing else in the script justifies the time wasted watching the film. Mary doesn't cheat me. Her use of language is amazing and rich, even when the content is disgusting, heart-wrenching, or pathetic. As I read the book, her changes in voice are awkward, but there have been times I've also felt five going on fifteen or fifty and I enjoyed her dark humor. Sometimes that's all that is left when life is pure misery. Despite a dysfunctional family life, her mother and father unknowingly nurtured and honed her ability to describe life so vividly with words. A gift that transformed her life forever. This book can be a fast read, but the emotions evoked while reading her story might stay with you much longer - it did for me. I felt I knew everyone she had written about quite well along, with a strong sense of place, because of her painstaking detail. Even if you are more interested in reading about someone else's happier, emotionally stable childhood, Mary's talent makes up for the shock that confronts us as the unsuspecting reader.
Rating:
Summary: A Catalyst for me
Review: THIS is the book that inspired me to get going after decades of procrastination and write down the stories in my life. I kept jumping up to find a piece of paper on which to jot down memories
that were brought back by this superb writer. Mary Karr is as
precise about people as Anne Lamott and that's a big compliment!
Her family was blatantly dysfunctional. I am wondering if that is easier than not knowing yours was, because everything was so pretty and perfect on the surface.
Rating:
Summary: Liars' Club
Review: Mary Karr takes reading and writing to a different level. Reading this memoir, I was swept up in her powerful and evocative language; I could see everything unfolding very clearly in my mind's eye. I can think of few authors who have such a gift for taking the complex subjects of life and reducing them to such simple and, well, truthful statements. Karr has a brilliance indicated by the fact that 'Liars' Club' is such a simple read. It's a stroke of luck, too, for it could make the most reluctant reader believe in stories again. Most highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: a detailed, arch memoir of a romantically flawed childhood
Review: Young Mary has a crazy, bohemian mother... she chases after bartenders, chews up tranquilizers like Jolly Ranchers and has a penchant for firearms. Mary doesn't let that bother her though. She's too tough.
In general, I don't like stuff like this... however, this book stands apart from most of those 'my childhood was crap' memoirs. Mary doesn't flinch from the disturbing part about having a crappy childhood-- knowing that you can and did adapt to inhuman conditions and knowing that you can't really escape the consequences of that. Because of her honesty and the refreshing absence of any self-righteousness or self-pity, I can honestly recommend this book to anyone. It's also funny as hell. Just read the sample and trust me... a good, fast-paced yarn about growing up under adversity.
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