by Sheryl Recinos ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 3, 2018
A perceptive and moving account of growing up fast in harsh conditions.
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A writer recounts her experiences of adolescent homelessness in this coming-of-age memoir.
At the age of 5, Recinos (Haiku, 2019, etc.) already knew she wanted new parents. Her father’s frequent rages and her mother’s erratic behavior stemming from bipolar disorder had already driven three of her older siblings from the house. When she was 8, her mother took her and her remaining brother to a trailer to hide out from their father. A few weeks later, after the heater broke, her mother left the two children alone on the side of a mountain road. Her parents divorced; her mother was in and out of hospitals; and her father soon remarried. Her father had the author hospitalized at 11, where she met other troubled youth in group therapy: “I’d quizzed the older kids on foster care, group homes, running away. I was learning about alcohol, marijuana, and harder drugs. I didn’t want to try drugs, but alcohol sounded like it might be a nice change from feeling trapped. I wanted to feel free.” As her life became increasingly unbearable, Recinos began routinely running away from home. At 13, while hitchhiking to California, she was raped by an ex-convict. She was soon placed in the care of the state, bouncing between juvenile detention, foster parents, and group residences before becoming homeless at 16. Drifting across the country and developing a drinking problem, she befriended other girls with similar lives and backgrounds as her own, one of whom was later brutally murdered by her boyfriend. At 17, the author found herself pregnant with few options. She needed to figure out a way to get sober and off the street, if not for her, then for her unborn child. Recinos’ prose is haunting and oftentimes surreal, as in this account of her pet rat and an attempted rape by a truck driver: “I woke up in the early morning hours to find the truck driver trying to unbutton my pants. My eyes flew open, and my knee kicked him hard in the groin. My rat was standing up on top of me, staring at him. He mumbled those unforgettable words; ‘I was going to rape you, but then I saw your rat.’ ” The volume gives a highly detailed picture of the experience of homelessness among teenage girls in all its horrid complexities. It also demonstrates the ways that youthful traumas, when unaddressed, can fester and cause increasingly severe problems as children age. The author’s portraits of her family, friends, and the many people she met along the way are rich and often heart-rending, as is the frankness with which she discusses their misfortunes. It’s a long book (over 370 pages), but it is never boring, and readers will leave it feeling that they have lived every year right along with Recinos. The fact that her story has a surprisingly happy ending (as the initials “MD” after her name on the memoir’s cover attest) does little to blunt the sting that this gritty narrative of homelessness and young womanhood leaves in its wake.
A perceptive and moving account of growing up fast in harsh conditions.Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-73285-000-2
Page Count: 388
Publisher: Time Tunnel Media
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
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by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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