Customer Reviews

Dharma Girl: A Road Trip Across the American Generations

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This is a very moving account of a young girl who feels the need to reconnect with her roots. Cain was raised on a hippie commune in Iowa but as a college student in California feels estranged from her background. This spurs a decision to move back to Iowa to rediscover the little girl she was. It's a simple enough premise but it is very well written. Her mother's bout with melanoma is the impetus for the journey. Then there is the search for a former friend thought to be dead which adds texture to the tale. The road trip is a great American motif and Cain handles it in her own unique circumstances. This is a tale about self-rediscovery as Cain attempts to bridge a hippie past with the current gen X values. It is cliché at times but very personal and honest. There is a lot of universal soil in this book. It can be appreciated by anyone who enjoys an honest account of dealing with illness and loss of innocence.

In Dharma Girl, Chelsea Cain is trying to appeal both to the Gen X reader who is searching for some meaning in her life and to the aging hippie, nostalgic for life on the commune and hoping that it all made a difference somehow. The book is a quick read which I really did enjoy, even though I do not fit into either of the two categories above. The most engaging aspect of the book is the tension over whether she will be able to locate one of the commune members with whom she had a special friendship

Chelsea Cain is a gen-x girl with gen-x values. As a young woman she seeks to understand her place in the world.

Raised by parents with a 1960's commitment to political liberalism and a hippie lifestyle, McCain wants to get a deeper understanding of her roots. To accomplish this, she travels back to Iowa with her mother. Iowa is where she spent her youth on a communal farm.

The story is especially poignant because her mother is ill with melanoma (a serious form of cancer).

The immediacy of her mother's melanoma and Chelsea's desire to understand her roots create an interesting and well-written memoir.

I fell in love with Chelsea's writing several books ago and knew I wouldn't be settled until I read them all. So after finishing the Hippie Handbook, (a fantastic funny book) I was delighted when my copy of Dharma girl arrived. A very emotional book about revisiting the people and places that made such an impression on Cain's idenity. And she sets out on this journey with the perfect traveling companion, her mom. Made me happy to experience such a close bond through Cain's eyes. I loved the way she revealed the Snowbird in memories of meaningful things her mom taught her by letting her discover rather than be told. The ending for me was obvious since this is a true life account and not fiction. Definitely a good read and explains alot about who Chelsea Cain is. And reveals why certain periods of ones life are meant to be examined in order to discover how we became who we are. I highly recommend it, if you can get one.

Chelsea Cain was raised on a hippie commune in the late 1960's when the Vietnam war sent youths to die or to Canada. After leaving the commune, she moves to California and becomes the stereotypical Generation-Xer: dissociated from her past and herself. After finding out her mother has melanoma and realizing how empty she feels in her current life, Chelsea decides to take a road trip with her mother back to the commune to reconnect with her mother and the people she knew from that other life.

All right, there's probably a couple of "spoilers" in here, but I tried to leave it vague.

Dharma Girl, essentially, is a book about finding one's identity. Although the book alludes that this goal was finally ascertained by Chelsea, you never really feel that way. I think maybe Chelsea wrote this novel too soon after the events in this narrative occurred, because it came across as a rough draft. Some images are evoked, such as a light bulb being turned on in the night as one of her first memories of something important, but is only revisited for an instant later at a moment that seemed as if should be crucial, but was more contrived and unnecessary.

I'd say it's worth a read purely for an insight into being raised in such an environment, why they didn't last, and the feelings leaving such a Garden of Eden instills in you, but maybe you should buy it used.

Chelsea Cain and I worked together a few years ago at the university newspaper in Iowa City. She was an excellent writer then, and Dharma Girl is wonderful as well. As a person, she is one of the nicest people I've ever met. I feel blessed to have had the opportunity to know her. I can't wait for her next effort.