mssamanthanagel's reviews
135 reviews

this memoir was haunting, well-written, funny, dark, inspiring, and such a captivating story. i felt so connected to the author, and so intrigued by everything she wrote. 
a lot of this story includes things i experienced growing up in an uber-conservative christian nationalist and mormon town, especially the doomsday prepping and distrust of government parts. however, other parts of this book left me shocked, thinking there’s no way the book could get wilder, only for it to get crazier still. 
not only did i feel so connected to the author, i felt (and feel) so proud of her. not just for making it out of this place, but for being so vulnerable. 
i also went no contact with an abusive parent who passed recently, and reading her account of being no or low contact with her family was incredibly healing to read. this has been on my TBR for years, yet i just picked it up - i think it was divine timing. 
also, a note on mormonism: this story represents fundamentalist mormons, not the average mormon. i know some were upset at how the religion was portrayed, and perhaps i would feel differently if i was mormon, but i actually found the church to be showed in a positive light. it was made clear several times that the author’s family was so different than other mormons, and i found the support the bishop offered her in college (who offered to pay for her medical bills and encouraged her not to work for her father) to be quite telling of many of the good qualities of mormons. 
i listened to this book, and highly recommend. julia whelan is a queen and makes any audiobook fantastic. 

i enjoyed this read quite a lot. it is my first babitz, and knowing what i know about her so far, i can see how autobiographical it is, and i think that vulnerability makes it special to me. 
this is marketed as a “coming of age” story, but i found it to be a story primarily about a young woman’s struggle with alcoholism and drug use while centering men’s approval. which is coming of age to some, yes, but i think i say it’s just a story of growing up makes the actual substance of the book sound watered down. it is deeply relatable to those it’s relatable too, but i wouldn’t necessarily consider this a relatable read across the board.

i agree with the reviews that say this book reads like a stream of consciousness. it’s not very prose-like, almost a more factual observation of what jacaranda is doing or saying. that isn’t my preferred style, but i thought it set the tone for the book. 

i also appreciated that the story was written in slightly different tones as her alcoholism progresses, then as her sobriety shakily begins. i loved the occasional snarky satirical comments, especially the ones that made jacaranda the butt of the joke (example, the reference that jacaranda would understand her euphoria highs and then crying spells lows if only she would just go to AA). 

i thought the arc was very beautiful, with the last page perfectly mirroring the girl we met who loved surfing and life on the first page. 

one thing i didn’t love was that the narrator was 95% focused on jacaranda, but every once and a while it would head hop to another character for a paragraph or two. that’s my pet peeve in reading, so those few times made me feel pulled out. 

i also didn’t enjoy reading the bulk of part 1, but i think that was more of a personal experience thing than it being hard to read generally. my enjoyment skyrocketed when part 2 began and her journey to new york started. and, i think we needed the vanity and self centeredness and self harm of part 1 to fully appreciate her changes in part 2. 

this book also reminded me of malibu rising by TJR.

this is one of the most special books i’ve read. having an autistic female main character is so refreshing. it felt like reading a diary many times - my copy is dog eared so much it’s hard to find a page that’s not, because of how much i related to her feelings and thoughts. it’s laugh out loud funny, lighthearted, yet also so deep and emotional. the ending is perfection, the foreshadowing is genius, and the character arc is beautiful. 

this book made me feel. were they enjoyable feelings? no. sometimes my stomach was twisted and i felt deeply uncomfortable. sometimes i absolutely hated the narrator. okay, i hated her a lot. and… i could relate to her. i know what it’s like to wish to press pause on life. i also know what it’s like to feel a renewed hope for life. this book deeply reminded me of my mother and the way she self medicated herself out of life. i thought the lack of consequences from stopping her substance use to be unbelievable, but then again, i don’t think believability is what the story is based on. i do think her character development was worth the read, though. i probably will never re-read, and i don’t recommend this as a light or easy or fun read. i listened to the book, and i do think that enhanced the experience. julia whelan is the best narrator of all time, and i think she made me push through the times i wanted to quit.