Mel Green

This book is about finding your way, in a world that seems to want to chew you up and spit you out. You are introduced to Bert when he is teenager, and get to learn slowly what his troubles are. Each chapter in the book is a new "adventure"- if you want to call it that. You see Bert go threw troubles his entire life, maybe because the drugs, the alcohol, or the constant reminder in the back of his head that he should be dead from a genetic disease.

I really loved this book, you get to go threw 15 years learning about Bert, and everything he did to in the end try to find happiness. I feel threw all the searching, and trouble, he was looking for happiness and acceptance. In some parts of this book I couldn't help but cringe, or cry, so many emotions. But one thing is I didn't want to put it down, and I wanted to know how it ended. Very good story, and I love the fact that the author wrote the part that were exaggerated and lies in the back of the book. don't read them until you finish the whole book though!… (meer)

This is a funny, entertaining novel. Or it is a touching, engaging memoir. Which is it? This “true story of misery and misinformation with an Appendix of Lies” is both, based on the author's life but jumping into the (gene) pool of fiction whenever it suits him. Thus, the appendix of lies.

At any rate, Bert Kelly manages, somehow, to make it to age 30 despite what he learned at 15 in the first sentences of this book.

I'm not saying it was all roses up until the day my father told me, at fifteen years old, that I would likely be dead from a disease in just as many years. But after that day, things sure as hell took a turn for the worse.

Learning from a childhood friend from instead of his parents that he was adopted was a big enough blow. Then, his emotionally distant father told Bert that he was carrying the genes for Huntington's Disease and not only was he likely to have an early death from the disease, but his body and mind would pull some really nasty tricks on the way to death. And his mother was no comfort. These were parents who seemed to like the idea of having a child more than they liked having a child.

So, given this death sentence, Bert starts acting up, although really not that badly. His parents ship him off to a military academy where things get much, much worse. And for the next 15 years, Bert meanders through his life, making poor decision after poor decision. He tries to find his biological family so he can be tested for the gene, the marker, that determines his fate, and what he finds isn't exactly Father Knows Best.

The story is funny but it is also reflective of real thoughts and feelings. The 15-year old Bert is sophomoric and there is some bad language, but fitting for someone his age who is angry and scared. He really, really has trouble trying to grow up. The book occasionally meanders a little too much for my taste but it all comes together fabulously in the end. Thank you to the author for giving me a copy of this book through LibraryThing's Member Giveaway program.… (meer)