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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Deserving Prize-Winning Memoir, September 3, 2005
I was hooked into this book from page one. Who was this little girl? Why was her life so difficult? Who was making her life a living hell?
The answers to these questions are given to us by a child using her five senses. We see, hear, feel, smell, and taste exactly what she is sensing in this beautifully written book to the point where I feel I know this little girl personally. At times, I even feel as though I am standing right there beside her feeling her gut-wrenching sadness as the train takes her mother away to Chicago--again.
With every turn of the page, we hope the little girl will finally be rescued by her mother or her father who will love her, and take care of her. But, this never happens.
There are very few books where I have actually stopped reading, and said to myself, "This is so good." Some lines in this book are written so poetically that I read them twice just to take in their beauty.
Linda Joy has written a memoir of a well-examined life full of vivid memories. The journey she takes us on spans from her desperate childhood to her life today that she enjoys with her children and grandchild. No child should ever be abandoned by a parent. Maybe this book will prevent it from happening again.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A candid, unflinching, personal memoir of discovery and recovery, October 14, 2005
This review is from: Don't Call Me Mother: Breaking the Chain of Mother-Daughter Abandonment (Paperback)
Don't Call Me Mother: Breaking The Chain Of Mother-Daughter Abandonment by author and therapist Linda Joy Myer is the compelling, compassionate, at times heart-wrenching story of her being abandoned by her mother. Linda painstakingly uncovers the multifaceted secret of the story of that abandonment and in doing so, takes her readers along on an intensely personal life journey the originates in a home shattered by more than a half-century of dysfunctional family history. Indeed, she found that abandonment was part of a generations-long tradition. But Don't Call Me Mother is also the story of Linda's personal struggle for a peaceful and loving family, breaking the patterns of neglect, achieving an ability for forgiveness. A candid, unflinching, personal memoir of discovery and recovery, Don't Call Me Mother is compelling, and at times inspiring, reading which is especially appropriate for Women's Studies and Family Studies library collections, as well as strongly recommended reading for anyone who were themselves rejected as children by their own mothers.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Read this memoir to better understand abandonment; read this memoir to learn about memoir writing, September 1, 2006
This review is from: Don't Call Me Mother: Breaking the Chain of Mother-Daughter Abandonment (Paperback)
As a women's memoir writing teacher and coach, I read memoirs to find exemplars for my classes. I recently read the excellent Don't Call Me Mother: Breaking the Chain of Mother-Daughter Abandonment by Linda Joy Myers. Her compelling life story is written as a series of vignettes that reveal a multi-generational pattern of abandonment and eventual healing. Myers, a marriage and family therapist, writes in the voice of the first person speaking in the present tense. If you are writing, or interested in writing, your memoir, consult this book to understand the dramatic impact on the reader of this voice and tense combination. From the author's perspective, Myers says the choice "forced me to integrate the self that I was with the witness I have become." You'll also notice the importance of trains in her life, representing separations and reunions, new ventures and returning home. If you are working on your memoir, consider if there has been a thread running through your life that could be woven into your memoir. Myers, also an artist, creates vitality and vividness in the people and places she shares with us through the use of color descriptors. What passions do you have - gardening, sports, cooking, art, music - that might enhance the telling of your story?
I strongly recommend this book as a "good read" if you struggle with the mother-daughter relationship in your life. I also highly recommend this book for the insights it offers into writing your memoir.
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