37 of 39 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Best Memoir I've Read Since "Liar's Club", April 15, 2009
This review is from: I'm Down: A Memoir (Hardcover)
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
What a great book! Fun, moving, and with a really unexpected ending. Though the promo material highlights her childhood as a white girl in a black neighborhood, this memoir is a more sophisticated story--and more universal story -- of a child who can't find her place in her family. And the most moving aspect of this book is her success in finding a place in the world, and what it ultimately costs her. Yes, it's heartbreaking in places, but it's hysterical in others and most importantly -- the story is compelling. I literally couldn't put this book down and I have the circles under my eyes to prove it.
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23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
This semi-autobiograpical memoir is really great airplane food!, April 8, 2009
This review is from: I'm Down: A Memoir (Hardcover)
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
Wow, apart from a bird identification book, this is the very first amazon vine product that I might have purchased in 'real life' and I'm happy to say that this is definitely a worthwhile acquisition.
Before we begin let's establish what this book is not: It is not hilarious or tragic as a cover blurb indicates. It is also not, strictly speaking, truly autobiographical as the author declaims up front something to the effect that many of the things in the book might never have happened and that she uses composites of characters to represent distinct personalities in her story.
What this book is is a very charming, often poignant, quite incisive, well-told story based on the remembrances of a caucasian woman whose childhood was spent living in a deteriorating Seattle neighborhood with a father who chose to 'go black.'
Interestingly, it is also a real testimonial to the quality and effectiveness of the the Seattle public school system and civic organizations in their efforts to provide opportunities to its most promising albeit less privileged (read wealthy) chidren.
The story revolves around a white girl who, along with her younger sister remain in the custody of her ne'er do well father who has fashioned himself a black man in a white man's body. They live in an urban Seattle neighborhood which has become predominantly black; a change that the girls' father revels in.
The author does a wonderful job of describing the struggles and triumphs she experiences as she struggles with the multiple challenges of adolescence; parental divorce; racial comity, difference and divide; and familial and peer group strife.
A really great thing about the book is that the author is able to give insightful analysis of the dynamics of the unfolding tale as if she was fully cognizant of them as a little girl. Of course the picture only became clear to her later, in adulthood, which is undoubtedly why she makes her disclaimer about the events depicted in the book.
Ms. Wolff knows how to spin a story and once you begin this book I doubt that you will want to put it down until you have finished it.
I began reading it on a flight from the West Coast to the East coast and found the book to be the perfect length for this journey as I got through the first third on the first leg and finished up the rest just as we were making the approach to land on the second leg: Brilliant!
You will definitely become emotionally invested in this book and I recommend it as a very satisfying entertainment that is better than mere candy or a popcorn movie.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Consummate Misfit Memoir: I'm Down: A Memoir by Mishna Wolff, June 3, 2009
This review is from: I'm Down: A Memoir (Hardcover)
Mishna Wolff has written the consummate misfit memoir. She makes it clear from the beginning that she is white--of white ancestry from both parents, but her father, growing up in a black neighborhood "becomes black." I don't mean her father asserts an affection to "to be down with the brothers." I mean her father, from the core of his being, is black and he expresses his blackness in his talk, philosophy, and sartorial choices. Growing up in a black neighborhood, her father, feebly, tries to teach his daughter how to be black. Mishan tries to learn how to cap, to insult others as competitive sport and learns her linguistic gifts. When she gets older and scores so high on her aptitude tests that she's transferred to a more "gifted" school, mostly populated with rich white kids, she tries to fit in there but to no avail, especially when she learns that the white kids don't appreciate the brain flexing exercise of capping.
Mishna Wolff's misadventures could not be scripted. Her wit and keen intelligence afford her the opportunities to chronicle the social, economical, and racial differences of this country and the dialogue between her and her "black" father is priceless. Highly recommended.
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