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Summary: "Becoming Anna" is a wake-up call for the world
Review: "Becoming Anna" lets the world know what it is like to be labeled insane. Anna Michner, whose original name was Tiffany, wrote about her experiences when her Mom convinced her that she was insane and was put in more than one mental institution. When in fact, she was suffering from physical and emotional abuse from her mother and grandmother. In these institutions, she was cut off from the world and often had to spend many hours of silence in a room with other so-called mental patients who usually were abused or convicted of a crime and awaiting trial. At the beginning she held to herself and tried to be a good girl so her mom would see that she wasn't insane. Eventually she realized that her Mom planned to leave her there. That's when she started to rebel. She believed that everyone thought she was insane, so when Lorri told her that she knew she wasn't, she was overjoyed. Lorri finally persuaded Tiffany to go to court and sign a petition that would put her in the state's custody, but she ended up not signing it because she felt that she was admitting that she was crazy. She had spent nearly a year in the institution before her mother asked her to come home. Not able to do anything else, she lived with her grandmother and mother until her mom had a nervous breakdown and her grandmother refused to take care of her. After that, she was put into the foster care of Charles and Mary Michner and two weeks before her 16th birthday they were declared her legal guardians. To separate her from her past, she changed her name to Anna and adopted her guardians' last name. This book shows a great deal of pain and suffering that most people do not go through when they are 16. Although it's a good book, it is very real and contains a great deal of profanity and images that might be disturbing to the reader. Overall, I thought it was nicely written and captured the readers' attention very well. I also liked the way the story ended. It did not leave you hanging as to what happened to her.
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Summary: The most unbelievable autobiography of young person.
Review: A review by Rod Ghearing of House of Fire: The Autobiographyof a Sixteen Year Old, by Anna J. Michener. How could a sixteenyear old possibly have enough life experiences to write an autobiography? Until you read Anna Michener's story you cannot possibly imagine. [...] It is difficult to describe my reaction to this book as I read it since it varied so much. First, I was appalled at the extent to which her families' cruelties to her could go, especially in her younger years. I wondered how she survived. Second, I could not understand how the "mental health system" in her state (not that it's different from any other state's) could have failed this young person so miserably. Her often repeated point that children have very few rights as compared to adults in this system is only too true. I find that I want to apologize to Anna for what the system we've devised and what our refusal to "get involved" has caused her to endure. I wholeheartedly encourage you to read this unbelievable account of her life at the hands of her family and our so-called mental heath system. Her story of courage and determination to survive while the whole world seemed to be working against her is both heart warming and heart breaking. Read her story. You will not be disappointed.
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Summary: All Teens Should Read This
Review: Although some may say that the author's a false and has completely exagerated the situation, I believed this to be one of the most inspiring pieces of literature I've ever read. The gut-wrenching story and depressing mood really made me think about how children are treated in hospitals today....this book is seriously worth reading. It definately made me think twice about what's really important in life and how I should never take anything for granted. The ending was a bit weak, but the rest made me forget about that. Warning: If you are an adult though, be open minded to this at first. Even though it does seem to place almost all of the adults as the "bad guys" it was written by a teenage girl! And her perspective is as it was when she was 16.
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Summary: an enlightening, creative adventure into the abyss
Review: Anna J. Michener has written one of the few honest, complete autiobiographies with relation to the subject of child abuse; not only by her parents but at the hands of an unsympathetic, emotionally blind society. This account is of overwhelming social importance; America right now is one of the many, many countries in the world that has not made any steps to ensure that children share equal and full protections under law as their 'adult' counterparts.
I found the scene when she had just arrived at the detestable 'juvenile hospital' and spent days floating in front of the windows, allowing the light to stream in-between her fingers to be aesthetically spellbinding. The ensuing prose shows us the outlines of a highly intellegent, creative mind that was so poorly appreciated by the people she had been dependant upon. Reading this book left a strong impression in my mind; I escaped the fate of being 'sent away' to a virtual concentration camp like the one described in my teen years, but know many that haven't.
As an abused child, it has taken a great deal for me to come to terms with the fact that what was done to me; and all of the cruelty, violence, and humiliation acted upon the youth of the entire world was indeed wrong, undeserved, and is worthy of being fought against. I hope that this book can impress readers upon those lines; that people won't just say "oh, I can't beleive that actually happens to people," and then go on with their lives when the fact is that this is happening all around them, they've just been taught not to recognize it for what it is. The blindness and cruelty that allowed the horrors which Anna J. Michener experienced need to be exposed; to be spoken of in order for these problems to be fixed.
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Summary: Every mental health professional should read this book.
Review: Having worked with mentally handicapped people of all ages, I realize that labels become a convenient way to rationalize our treatment of others. Or to taylor our expectations of others. It's too convenient. We need to get to know each person as an individual before judging. Anna has helped me remember this. I wish her every good thing in the world. She is extremely intelligent and mature and will prevail. This book was very well written. I hope it helps other children in similar situations.
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Summary: thumbs up!
Review: I am so glad that I found and read this book before reading the negative reviews here. It is a wonderfully written book--it really surprised me to be reading something so well-written on the topic, in fact. This book is a rare gem in it's willingness to stand up to the system while being quite eloquent. I may be accused of "siding" here, but I feel there are perfectly good reasons for it. I too have pretended I was crazy to escape living with my mother and had my life engulfed by trying to make it to my eighteenth birthday in a home that didn't treat me like a human being. I personally related to many of Anna's descriptions of her frustrations. Many people do not want to acknowledge what really happens behind closed doors, the cycles that repeat themselves over and over again. The disbelieving reactions of readers, criticizing her for her attitude, enforce the culture that believed Anna's mother and trapped her in mental institutions. And to these reviewers, the reason doing laundry in the basement is a big deal is because her dad lived in the basement and repeatedly beat her in that spot. It would not have been feasible for Anna to write a book full of apologies to her readers, so she offers a succinct one for interpreting the tone of the book, noting that if she is going overboard in anger, it is for lack of what she could feel going through it. And such a story is so complicated that I think she handles the issue very well. If you haven't read this book, please don't listen to the harsh reviews calling Anna's vantage point into question. Yes, it's a harsh and infuriating topic. But she's done a marvelous job telling her story, and it's one of the best-told such stories you'll find.
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Summary: Comments on Becoming Anna
Review: I am writing to provide some background for the readers of the abovebook, since I feel that I can clarify some matters about which somehave been curious. My wife and I are the old couple mentioned in theepilogue of Anna's book, with whom she has lived on and off forseveral years. Some readers have questioned whether a 16-year-oldcould write so perceptive an account, implying that she was helped byothers. Soon after she came to our house, she sat down at thecomputer and started writing. At first we did not know what she waswriting, although soon she said she was writing the story of her life.She told us a lot about her past, probably everything in her book, butthe written product we did not see. Rarely, when was pleased withsomething she had written, she would read a few pages to us, but wedid not have a chance to read the whole thing until it was beingsubmitted to the press. She worked nearly every day, sometimes forlong hours, and was very proud of having finished before her l7thbirthday, but then it was 500 typewritten pages long. In thefollowing year, still without accepting advice from us, she cut itdown to 250 pages. Early in her stay with us, of course we wonderedabout her stories and the accuracy of her recollections. We got acopy of the records from the institution where she spent about a year.We found no inconsistancies; she tells the truth. Nothing bad was saidabout her in the records except by way of her mother's accounts. Somehave wondered how she could remember accurately all the things thatshe reports. Of course she may misinterpret as much as anyone else,but we early learned that she has a remarkable memory forconversations and emotions. She would give us an account of someepisode, and then months later expect that we remembered the details,and she knew exactly what she had told us (it all sounded familiarwhen she had to repeat it). I am sure that every episode that shedescribes is correct as she understood it, and I have a lot ofconfidence that her interpretations are accurate. ...
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Summary: Unbelievable but true account
Review: I applaud Ms. Michener for her work on this book. It is a revealing account of what happens to children in our society that are deemed mentally ill. I myself experienced almost identical teenage years in mental institutions during this time and also a lack of identification of parental child abuse. It has taken the strength and courage of Ms. Michener to bring to light what our society should know about the treatment of societies most vulnerable children. It is a must read book for any adult who works in the child welfare system or parents who are considering placing their children in mental health facilities.
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Summary: Sad, Sad Story
Review: I first read _Becoming Anna_ shortly after it was published. Since then, it and its young author have received a good deal of attention, but the doubts and questions I first felt at reading this remarkable story remained with me upon a later reading. While this book is unusually vividly written, and its author is undeniably gifted, something about it just doesn't ring true to me. As other reviewers have noted, there are discrepancies and omissions which cast doubt over some of the very vivid and highly emotional accounts of abuse by the author's various family members. To many details just don't fit together in the descriptions of Anna's parents and grandmother - there are too many contradictions here. While Ms Michener appears to have tried to depict her relatives as almost all bad (and herself almost all good), it is obvious, especially in the case of her mother, that instead, these were all-too-human, multi-dimensional people, who undeniably made major mistakes, but who also cared desperately for a desperately ill child. They didn't appear to me to be the demonic characters which some readers have taken them to be - but then, I'm no longer a teenager myself and am looking at this book from a very different perspective. Also, again as other reviewers have pointed out, the account of Anna's "adoption" (unofficially? It's not clear...) by the Michener family seems to be hastily and skimpily told. It left me with a number of questions: why was the Michener's grandson living with them? Where were his parents? How did Anna become so close to this family so very quickly? And why, if she was living with her mother, reasonably peacefully, and doing well at school, did she cut all ties and immediately renounce her birth family after joining this new family? Was this entirely her own decision or was she influenced by others? And for that matter, how did this book come to the attention of it academic publisher? Were there academic connections made available to this young woman that other 16-year-olds lacked? All this is either omitted or glossed over in _Becoming Anna_, and the author's afterword doesn't make things any clearer. The highly emotional tone of the writing makes this book a fascinating and painful read, but also makes it difficult to evaluate it objectively. Some of this can be attributed to the youth of the author, and perhaps less-than-ideal editing. But this melodramatic tone detracts from the author's stated objective; to improve mental health care for youth. Instead,the author falls perilously close to self-pity, extreme judgmentalism,resentfulness,sarcasm, and bitterness, all of which weaken her story. Her material is outstanding - her treatment of it lacking. It's hard for someone so close to a situation of this kind to be objective - certainly at such a tender age. This is where a good editor could have strengthened this book, and encouraged the author to grow past her perhaps-inevitable immaturity. As others have noted, had this book been written at ages 26 or even 36 instead of 16, no doubt it would have been very different - far more textured and far more objective. By then, it is likely that the author would have matured and gained considerably more perspective - and one hopes, compassion - and self-awareness. My guess is that her life would be happier had she not codified her youthful experiences quite so soon...as it is, she is now "stuck" with this version of herself, unless she writes a sequel. And who would want to remain forever sixteen? Anna Michener is a talented writer - I hope this sad debut isn't a flash in the pan for her, and that her maturity will someday match her writing abilities.
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Summary: completly engrossing
Review: i found 'becoming anna' a non-stop read from the moment i picked it up. written between her 16th and 17th birthdays, the main content of her book details her time in two mental insititutions. the horror of what actually happens (she was in them in the early 90's) is hard reading. what she experienced, the failures of the mental health system and how children are treated is heart-breaking. in her epilogue she comments on her relief of finally being 18 as suddenly she had 'rights'. before she had no recourse to rebel against her (wrongful) incarceration, the instituions listen to who pays the bills-not who has to endure it. the falsity and cruelty of the staff at these places and the own terror of her abusive, neglectful family make it strong reading. i found this to be a beautifully written book for someone so young, detailing the pain of her short life.
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