1 comments about 2943: An Immigrant Girl's Childhood in St. Louis.

1. Great book. Paints such a vivid picture of her childhood. It helped me to relate to how life must have been like for my grandmother who was also a child of immigrants. I enjoyed the book very much. I hope there is a part two of her and her siblings' teen years.

No comments about Struggle Through the Twentieth Century.

1 comments about My Father Was Bipolar.

1. This is a terrible book. The story is very boring. Her father is barely mentioned because he isn't even living in the home most of the time. Its more about what goes on when he's not there. Her father was also never diagnosed as being bipolar, and the author is very unconvincing when explaining why she thinks he was. Anyone who knows anything about this disorder will be very disappointed in this book.

5 comments about Four Seasons of Life.

1. It's difficult to say what's more pathetic: This vanity-press pile of puerile drivel, or the 'author' herself coming here to repeatedly post five-star feedback for herself (see below!). 'Kathi Kay' is the pen-name of one Kathleen Sourwine of Chicago, a self-confessed failed wife and even more failed mother, who obviously scrawled this cheap pulp to shamefully cash in on the "repressed memories of incest" self-outings that swept the nation a few years back.
   
   The result?: A sparse, salacious little screed much more illiterate than illuminating. It's not easy to find any meaning through the constant gaffes of misspellings and bad grammar in every limp sentence. Was this sorry excuse of a woman actually an incest survivor? Is that excuse for her adult miseries real or imagined? Hard to tell, since the book fumbles from embarrassingly eroticised 'memories' to self-pity poesy in a muddled, confused fashion.
   
   The net effect is a creepy, almost laughable FEEL SORRY FOR ME whinefest that treats a serious subject with crass indignity: The author's not a charity case. She's a head case; skip this amateur trash.



2. This book was raw and intense. A bit difficult to follow but considering it's content, very understandable. I felt I was there! The madness came through as only true madness can. Good job, tough story.



3. I found this book to be REAL. I don't sense this is a seasoned author but a seasoned survivor! I found it hard to follow in the beginning, but after the culmination of the story, I could understand why! Definitely not a CLASSIC. Definitely an EXPERIENCE in life!



4. This is a poorly written, uninteresting dirge.

   The changes from 1st person to third person were maddening and one has to slog through it just to find out that it adds nothing to the story but confusion. I have to confess that it was so poorly done, initially I though it was in error. Upon further evaluation of the material I think the author was attempting (ineffectively I might add) help the reader experience her protagonist's multiple personality disorder.

   This book attemtps, unsuccessfully in my opinion, to deal with some very meaningfull issues. Unfortunately, the character development is so poor that it hardly seems to matter what happens to them.

   This book comes off as a whining justification for the protagonist's deficiencies as a wife and mother. The truely sad part is that it has become so common a theme in our popular culture that now people accept these rationalizations as the whole truth. If you're a screw-up it must be due to the horrors suffered during childhood, because without that rationale we would have to take some responsibility ourselves for doing things that are unthinkable.

   This is a very difficult subject to do well and it certainly wasn't done well here. I came out of the book feeling little more than contempt for the protagonist, when I should have felt empathy. Don't waste time on this one.




5. An interesting, compelling story from child to survior. Well written. Not ever coming from a harmful childhood or disruptive relationships, I found it compelling reading. I couldn't put it down until I finished it.

No comments about A Plant Once Uprooted Can No Longer Hug the Ground.

No comments about War Child (A Memoir).

No comments about I Still Remember the Twentieth Century.

No comments about No Bed for Me.

No comments about The Horrors of War from the Eyes of a Child.

No comments about Sheltered Places.