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Why did I wait so long to read this?! This book is superb and so good that it’s going to now be hard finding something good enough to read next. I wanted so badly to finish it and yet I didn’t want it to end.

Wow! This is one of those times when I cannot write a review that does justice to the book. It’s hard for me to get anything down actually. So what I write might come across as incoherent.

The writing and especially the storytelling is stellar. This author’s personal & family story is fascinating. The account is a page-turner. Even though it was difficult to put down, I really appreciated that there were short sections throughout and therefore frequent perfect places to put down the book and stop reading for a while. Of course, the short sections also made it easy to read just one or two or three more.

It’s really hard to write a review of a book that’s about someone else’s life. Of course I had opinions and feelings about every person. I think that the author does at least indirectly imply what it was about the mix of experiences she and her family members had that led to how they turned out, but I’d have liked even more of that. Then again, her mother had said to just tell the truth, just say what happened, and she did that. She did it well. I couldn’t help doing some of my own thinking though. Of course, the story was so engaging that most of the time I just immersed myself in it.

The author presents a lot of good with the bad and I’m in awe of how she did that and also of how she coped and how she took actions on her own behalf. She’s exceptionally skilled at painting portraits of the people in her life and also of herself.

Thank goodness for all the humor in the account because there was so, so much that was grim. Tragic, scary, infuriating.

The author’s very short stint living in San Francisco warranted the book going on my San Francisco shelf. She described the city/ocean beach area so well. I’m about 7 years older than the author, and lived in the city at the time and knew it and the area well.

I would have loved more photos (though I wonder how many could have been taken during the author’s childhood years, especially her early years.) The only photos included are a wedding photo of her parents and a photo of the author in the present day on the cover as part of the author biography section.

If I have any more than minor criticism of the book, it’s that I thought it ended way too abruptly, although I guess wanting more and wanting more details shows how invested I was in the author’s life story. Also the “no recriminations� comment Jeannette directed at Brian in the last section, while I agree it wouldn’t have been good timing, rubbed me the wrong way. I’m obviously a lot angrier about what she and her siblings went through than she is. There was good with the bad, but the bad was glaring. A very eventful and highly unusual childhood and coming of age!

I’m putting the rest of this review in spoiler tags partly because I at least allude to some life events of the author & her family members, but mostly because I’ve expressed my feelings/opinions about how I feel about them, and other readers are likely to want to form their own opinions without my sentiments & judgments intruding. The following are more “notes to myself� and possibly springboards for discussion with others who’ve read the book rather than a continuation of a review. Dithering ramblings that I do consider major spoilers:

(view spoiler)[ I so identified with so much of Jeannette’s life. While I definitely didn’t experience the worst of what she did, I also didn’t experience some of the best. I do identify a lot with what this family went through. It was a bit too close to home despite great differences with specific experiences.

The parents were so intelligent and creative and I did appreciate how the father was loving (at least until his alcoholism got really bad) and taught the kids so many things. The mother, even if it was for utterly selfish reasons and even thought it was inappropriate, did teach her kids to be self-reliant and she modeled a lot of creativity, though maybe not in a less destructive way than that of their father. They were both amazingly good home-schoolers given that all the kids read at such early ages, learned many things and learned how to think, and that showed by how well they could do when thrust into public schools. Pretty amazing.

I found both parents incredibly frustrating. Despite the father’s alcoholism that got so bad and all that went with it was atrocious, the mother drove me crazier. The incidents of extreme selfishness were so extreme. Her inability to even want to mother or to provide even basics for her 4 kids I just can’t get over. Finding out what I found out near the end of the book made me even angrier. I know both parents had mental health issues, but even though there was a strong family bond between family members, I can’t quite figure out the loyalty shown to the parents.

I can’t imagine how the kids did so well given how much chronic malnutrition they experienced over many years.

Mostly I had major sibling envy. Brian has got to be the most ideal brother. The friendship between those two is wonderful. I love Lori’s sarcastic sense of humor. Jeannette captured their personalities so well. The way the kids had each other and the gumption they exhibited and self-reliance and how they took care of one another and the family is laudable and enviable too.

I worry terribly about Maureen, and I did even before the portions near the end. She was so much younger than the other kids and think had even worse parenting and didn’t have the closeness with her three siblings the way they did with each other. I also hadn’t gotten a good feeling for who she was/is and think maybe that’s because the author didn’t know her that well, though maybe it was a good thing she got to spend so much time with friends and other families.

ETA: I was so curious so I googled Jeannette and her siblings right after I finished this review and I’m flummoxed that the mother lives on the property of the author & her husband, in a separate dwelling, but even so. I am kind of in awe of the author and hope that she’s as okay now as she presents. I’m also almost as worried about Maureen as I was as I was reading the book.

And yeah, it feels funny to evaluate the people but that’s what I do when reading biographies.

Mostly I envy their strength and closeness/togetherness, and their intelligence, and the way they were able to survive, and how they’ve managed to create satisfying adult lives. I’m grateful I didn’t suffer their level of extreme neglect and deprivation. And, I thought I’d lost a lot but it was nothing compared to the “you can take one thing with you� they experienced.

When I read that they were the poorest of the families in their very poor area, that got to me, and hit me even harder after Jeannette learns what she learns from her mother that’s related to the reader near the end of the book. (hide spoiler)]

It’s an excellent book and I’m happy that I finally got it off my to read shelf.