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Rating: 
Summary: Not her best....
Review: As a memoir, this book read like a diary, for better or worse. Mary Morris writes very well and this is probably the reason the book held my attention. Someone who wants a strongly plotted book may not be as engaged as I was, since the "plot" is simple -- how she deals with being a young single mother, and the relationship with the child's father. She uses the backdrop of California and "new age" movements as she moves back and forth between her woes and her visits to various "new age" and Las Vegas players.
Rating: 
Summary: Don't Waste Your Time!
Review: Having read Morris's "Nothing to Declare," I looked forward to reading this book. I can only imagine that Morris had to make some quick money and resorted to publishing this trivia. There is very little about the New Age community in California or New Age beliefs. There is very little in this book other than what goes on inside of Morris's own head. And it's mostly whining, complaining and feeling sorry for herself-- as well as the tedious minutia of raising her daughter and everyday traffic tie ups on the LA freeway. She goes so far as to spend a paragraph telling us she had to go to the store to buy Pampers for her baby. PLEASE!! What happened just prior to this memoir is that Morris got pregnant by her boyfriend, who turned out to be a selfish jerk who wouldn't marry her. So if you buy and read this book, be prepared for page after page of --Poor me, starving writer, how will I feed and take care of my baby. Babies have to eat. Babies have to be changed. Babies cry and need my attention so I can't write my books!-- We know that, Mary. Now write us a book that takes us to a place other than your baby's dirty diapers!
Rating: 
Summary: Moving on and up; a woman's personal fulfillment
Review: It takes a brutally honest author, as Mary Morris is, and has done, to admit what she did for love. The sacrifices Mary made on behalf of her lover and father of her baby is basically the spinal cord for the novel. Her search for life's meanings and attempts to reconnect to a world so devoid of personal responsibility by this man open up painful recollections, yet serves as a foundation to offer her fresh experiences and rich sources of humor and honesty which are skillfully revealed. Let me say right off that this is not just another "man bashing novel". It would be truly unfortunate for a reader to be unable or unwilling to see beyond the appalling behavior of her partner and not appreciate how brave she is to allow this information to be shared. The fact that he is professionally influential is a sad reflection on the perception of the public. Personally he is manipulative and deceptive, or, also known as "married with children." Providing for his "first" family and their priorities, he makes promises AND children (not by his first wife, obviously) he can not and will not keep. Do not ask him for his time, he has "too many commitments". Electing to buy an expensive pure bred puppy to give as a present to his legitimite son, he sends ROSES for his and Mary's daughter's first birthday. Never a cent to feed, clothe or care take her, he neglects all responsibility for his fatherhood. Left to babysit for only one hour, he forgets where the baby is in favor of a televised ball game. When confronted by Mary, wakened and shocked into an incredulously terrified alertness , he notices the baby poised at the electric socket, her little finger wet and ready to probe. He is, however, unwilling to divert his attention from the TV. Obviously relieved that mom has come to HIS rescue, he returns to the game oblivious to the consequences of his behavior. The attraction of this novel is, therefore, dependent on Mary's awakening. The pages will turn rapidly with anticipation and your senses will be alert, preparing for all possibilities. It is difficult not to relate, she effectively taps into so many facets of complicated relationships. The need to protect her child is life altering and she finds the strength to make the decisions that must be made. With an inquisitive nature, she allows herself to examine alternate beliefs and applications with a sense of humor and reasonable doubt. Willing to admit to her own faults, her history is offered with no apologies and some outright laughs. A traveler memoir author, her trip to the west coast with her baby daughter reads like a novel. True to the spirit of the west the angels and aliens were her companions along the way.
Rating:
Summary: Moving on and up; a woman's personal fulfillment
Review: It takes a brutally honest author, as Mary Morris is, and has done, to admit what she did for love. The sacrifices Mary made on behalf of her lover and father of her baby is basically the spinal cord for the novel. Her search for life's meanings and attempts to reconnect to a world so devoid of personal responsibility by this man open up painful recollections, yet serves as a foundation to offer her fresh experiences and rich sources of humor and honesty which are skillfully revealed. Let me say right off that this is not just another "man bashing novel". It would be truly unfortunate for a reader to be unable or unwilling to see beyond the appalling behavior of her partner and not appreciate how brave she is to allow this information to be shared. The fact that he is professionally influential is a sad reflection on the perception of the public. Personally he is manipulative and deceptive, or, also known as "married with children." Providing for his "first" family and their priorities, he makes promises AND children (not by his first wife, obviously) he can not and will not keep. Do not ask him for his time, he has "too many commitments". Electing to buy an expensive pure bred puppy to give as a present to his legitimite son, he sends ROSES for his and Mary's daughter's first birthday. Never a cent to feed, clothe or care take her, he neglects all responsibility for his fatherhood. Left to babysit for only one hour, he forgets where the baby is in favor of a televised ball game. When confronted by Mary, wakened and shocked into an incredulously terrified alertness , he notices the baby poised at the electric socket, her little finger wet and ready to probe. He is, however, unwilling to divert his attention from the TV. Obviously relieved that mom has come to HIS rescue, he returns to the game oblivious to the consequences of his behavior. The attraction of this novel is, therefore, dependent on Mary's awakening. The pages will turn rapidly with anticipation and your senses will be alert, preparing for all possibilities. It is difficult not to relate, she effectively taps into so many facets of complicated relationships. The need to protect her child is life altering and she finds the strength to make the decisions that must be made. With an inquisitive nature, she allows herself to examine alternate beliefs and applications with a sense of humor and reasonable doubt. Willing to admit to her own faults, her history is offered with no apologies and some outright laughs. A traveler memoir author, her trip to the west coast with her baby daughter reads like a novel. True to the spirit of the west the angels and aliens were her companions along the way.
Rating:
Summary: Don't Waste Your Time!
Review: The "travel" part of this travel-memoir is all internal. And that is well since the inner journey is the most important part of any travel. Morris' roller-coaster ride through motherhood and a blighted relationship is brilliantly portrayed without the syrupy sentimentality that usually occurs in this genre. She is brutally honest about herself, and yet one can not help but understand her plight and feel her pains. She openly admits her shortcomings and I found this very heartening because that is the one thing many writers can not achieve--self honesty at the cost of ego. Her prose is startlingly simple and deceptively profound. The whole thing really is about a year in the life of a very lonely woman, struggling to make a life for herself and finding her soul. The sidekick storyline about the counter cultures of New Age hippies and alien cults is really just that: a supporting structure, something to weave into her own story and provide a reflective surface for herself. This book is no academic exploration of the wacky side of Southern California living. It is a very tender look at one life. It seems that Morris did find a happy ending to her story although it is unfortunate that she did not elaborate on how it came about. I think there are many secrets to happiness and wish that Morris would have shared a bit more of her discovery. But, then again, maybe that's the thing about artists in general: they are destined to leave us wanting more. This is no conventional travelogue or memoir. It breaks new grounds. And we should applaud the author for that.
Rating:
Summary: odds and ends bin of a book
Review: This book to me seemed to combine all the loose odds and ends from the rest of Mary Morris' writing. Granted, I read it after reading five or six of her other books, so I was able to recognize where she transformed autobiography into fiction, but in a lot of cases the fiction was better written. The overarching theme of "Angels and Aliens" of being a single mother, involved in a neither-here-nor-there with a man who won't take responsibility is the center of her novel "The Night Sky," her meditations on the places she is traversing are more organic and poignant in her other memoir, "Nothing To Declare," detailing her journey through South America. Her flashbacks to her childhood in a privileged Chicago suburb and the family tensions that lurked beneath the perfect Midwestern front are the basis for "Acts of God," her best novel IMHO. The problem with this book is that it is too unstructured, it does not flow, and although it is engrossing to some degree, because she has an interesting voice and a way with words, and does make the reader invested, I would suggest pretty much all of her other work before this book.
Rating:
Summary: odds and ends bin of a book
Review: This book to me seemed to combine all the loose odds and ends from the rest of Mary Morris' writing. Granted, I read it after reading five or six of her other books, so I was able to recognize where she transformed autobiography into fiction, but in a lot of cases the fiction was better written. The overarching theme of "Angels and Aliens" of being a single mother, involved in a neither-here-nor-there with a man who won't take responsibility is the center of her novel "The Night Sky," her meditations on the places she is traversing are more organic and poignant in her other memoir, "Nothing To Declare," detailing her journey through South America. Her flashbacks to her childhood in a privileged Chicago suburb and the family tensions that lurked beneath the perfect Midwestern front are the basis for "Acts of God," her best novel IMHO. The problem with this book is that it is too unstructured, it does not flow, and although it is engrossing to some degree, because she has an interesting voice and a way with words, and does make the reader invested, I would suggest pretty much all of her other work before this book.
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