T Kira Madden

The prose itself is five stars. I don't really know how to describe it other than beautiful, immersive, and beautiful again. The seemingly tiny details stuck with me and gut-punched me when they came up again. I'm amazed.

As beautiful as the writing was, I did feel that there were some inconsistencies in the characters that confused me, particularly with the parents. I don't mean the duality of their respective characters, I mean their core characteristics seemed to drastically differ in what I interpreted as the same point of time. I also thought that although the choice to intersperse timelines definitely added some intrigue to the book, it also interrupted the natural flow of the narrative, and so I don't have a good sense of the timeline of the author's life and it made certain plot points confusing.… (meer)

I don't often read memoirs and I usually take a longer time to get through them but this was an exception for sure. I really enjoyed Madden's writing style throughout the entire book. I can't exactly pinpoint what I like about it exactly but I did. The book felt incredibly honest and I found my eyes watering at the ending of the memoir. I don't think I've actually felt this way about any other memoirs I've read. Reading about her parents' life, her family and how her journey to discovering herself allowed me to reflect on my own life too. I hope the author would continue writing more and I would probably read anything she puts out!… (meer)

This was just gorgeous and lovely. Madden writes about women with a tenderness and affection that makes me love women even more, in all of their flaw and rage. The atmosphere alternates between almost ethereal and then these just blood-chilling moments of that being shattered, a return to harsher reality. Her writing about her father is of course amazing, but I keep returning to the way she write about women and how much I love it; just a care and affection that we see so rarely in writing, and it's so so good. Definitely recommend it for that reason.… (meer)