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Summary: WHAT A WONDERFUL BOOK!
Review: This is such a wonderful book -- which may seem an odd way to describe a book with such waste and tragedy and sadness. However, Barbara Robinette Moss shares these stories of her youth with us so poetically and without a trace of bitterness that it becomes more than just a poor, sad childhood. The book is very similar to the recent ECOLOGY AND A CRACKER CHILDHOOD, which I also enjoyed, but was disappointed in because of the abrupt ending. This book brings us pretty much up-to-date, and I understand the author is writing a sequel which I am really looking forward to! I wish this book had pictures and that it told who was who in the cover picture. Other than that, it was a very satisfying book, full of both tears and laughter, and ending with much optimism. A wonderful book which I hope will sell well and not be lost in the mish-mash of current memoirs.
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Summary: Character Will Prevail
Review: This wonderful book has so many surprises. First among them is the undaunted spirit and strength of a girl who suffers through a hellish childhood and can write beautifully about it without wallowing in regret and elegiac gloom. The humor and apparent lack of bitterness is truly amazing as Ms. Moss relates the horror of an abusive alcoholic father, a numbed but loving mother, and the suffocating poverty of her rural South. This is not a depressive book. And there is no request or undertone for pity. Simply put, this is a must read for those who were moved by Angela's Ashes or similar books. This is America. This is a woman. This is a disadvantaged girl who perservered. To have written this book without a sense of loss or regret is an astonishing feat. The writing is clear and uncomfortably descriptive. You will feel her hunger, pain, fear and shame. And you will learn her incredible ability to cope and triumph. This is a wonderful book.
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Summary: Humor captured me into Moss' story; I forgot it was a memoir
Review: We just read Change Me Into Zeus' Daughter in my women's book group. Moss captured all of us with her humor and the comfortable rhythm of her storytelling. She transforms her childhood of poverty in the rural South and her abusive family into compelling tales. I would find myself laughing and then stop to say, "wait a minute, this was awful and it really happened to them." As in The Liar's Club, by Mary Karr I found myself crying a lot, too. Moss paints a portrait of this family that allows you to walk right in. To borrow a word from her father, this book is immaculate.
Rating:
Summary: This book is an experience
Review: Writing at its best is lived rather than read. Occasionally we have the privilege to be drawn into someone's experiences with such power and clarity that we are possessed by their history and translated into it. Barbara Moss's story makes us members of the family as she weaves gripping tales of poverty, alcohlism, sickness and neglect into a book that you can't stop reading. As difficult as the circumstances are, the story is never without hope. The characters are in many ways ordinary and flawed and in spite of that, are amazingly appealing, interesting, funny, and often heroic as they struggle with the situations that compose their existence. In her writing she is able to depict seemingly ordinary events, turning them into human essences that touch our deepest emotional levels, where we live and laugh and cry and love.
Rating:
Summary: A Powerful Story
Review: Writing at its best, is lived rather than read. Occasionally we have the privilege to be drawn into someone's experiences with such power and clarity that we are possessed by their history and translated into it. Barbara Moss' story makes us members of the family as she weaves gripping tales of poverty, alcoholism, sickness and neglect into a book that you can't stop reading. As difficult as the circumstances are, the story is never without hope. The characters are in many ways ordinary and flawed and in spite of that, are amazingly appealing, interesting, funny, and often heroic as they struggle with the situations that compose their existence. In her writing she is able to depict seemingly ordinary events, turning them into the human essences that touch our deepest emotional levels, where we live and laugh and cry and love.
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