Customer Reviews

In My Skin: A Memoir

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is not the best memoir I have ever read. It is also not the worst. I find the comment that this book was "self-indulgent" to be amusing, as I would never expect a memoir to be anything but. That's kind of the point. However, that said, Kate Holden is a talented writer, there is no question. She broke many of the beliefs I previously held about heroin addiction, but I was surprised by how superficially her addiction was portrayed in the book - it seemed only to affect how much money she had, and her relationship with the family. This book is not about a struggle with addiction. If you're looking for that, try reading "Dry" by Augusten Burroughs.

I found this book to be much more about discovering yourself, your talents, your shortcomings, etc. The sex and drugs are really just the shock factors that pull you into what could have been a very boring tale of self-discovery. This book makes for a good read overall, can be tough to stomach at times, and may frustrate you with the sense that you are only skimming the surface of events and relationships. If you're looking for a truly detailed, involved memoir of struggle and overcoming, I suggest "The Glass Castle" by Jeanette Walls. If you enjoy the memoir genre as a whole, then I recommend this book for the purpose of diversifying your experience with this class of writing.

I knew nothing about heroin addition before reading this book. Why on earth would anyone try it? Why don't the junkies just stop? Who cares about them anyway?

In a clear, well written story Holden answers these questions and more. She goes from a bored uni-student from a happy home, to hanging out with "the wrong crowd", and sinks slowly, inevitably into heroin addiction. Her days become obssessed with a single goal - "Do I have enough money for a fix?" Most heartbreaking of all is her repeated abandonment of her family, whose agony she sometimes mentions, but is never important enough to make her stop. Eventually, penniless, she turns to prostitution. The contrast between the dangerous, dirty world of streetwalking compared to the safe clean environment of a legal brothel is striking.

As a Melbourne resident it felt chilling to think that I walked the same streets of St. Kilda as Holden did. I occasionaly glimpsed street walkers with amusement, but knew nothing of who they were, or why there were there. This book taught me a lot.

"In My Skin" is anything but boring.

You would be denying yourself an amazing reading experience if you approach "In My Skin" as just a former heroin addict's confession.

Kate Holden (an arts and creative writing graduate) is an excellent writer and deserves to be recognized and appreciated for her writing, not just for her and her family's struggle in overcoming her addiction.

Although her prose in the book glows with a delicate grace and nostalgic tenderness, it never whitewashes the harsh reality of heroin addiction.

Her descriptions of people and events are always succinct, there is no superfluous or wasted word. A character springs to life on the pages with just a few lines of concise physical description, action or dialogue. Her narrative grabs the readers and propels them headlong into her journey. I had to remind myself to slow down to savor her writing whenever I caught myself reading too fast.

Holden says in an interview that she feels strongly about the negative ways prostitutes and their clients are portrayed in the media and wishes to depict a more realistic picture to show these people are not necessarily bad or monstrous.

The part of her memoir describing her experience working in brothels and on the streets does exactly that. The prostitutes are shown as mostly decent women trying to earn honest money honorably while putting up with a lot of crap and the clients are not always misogynistic sleazballs.

I enjoy reading a non-judgmental account of the sex industry. The stories are sometimes brutal, often amusing, but always touching. I really wish Kate had told us more stories from her, I am sure, large collection.

You can read "In My Skin" for just the ultimately uplifting "story", and you would still enjoy it immensely, but if you don't pay attention to her prose, you would also be missing out on fully appreciating a virtuosic performance from a major new writer.

I loved this book. Im not gonna say what happens but, ill tell you that this book will show you the most evilest of sides of the human race. She will tell you all the graphic details of her horrific life. I think I love this book so much because i lived it, i know how it feels. but the way she writes it, it all just seems so messed up from the outside, and so PAINFUL. It will make you think about your own life, how much you really have.

***EDITED 10/06/10***

I can not remember when i first bought this book. But i read it and i fell in love. I had loaned this book to a friend and it had gotten lost in her travels, so i just bought this book again, and it is on its way. I cant wait to receive it in the mail! this was one of my favorite books a while ago, its just to graphic and real it hurts. but its true, and thats why i have always loved it.

I am in two minds about this book. On one hand, I absolutely loved it. On the other, I felt it was lacking.

Bad news first: The memoir seemed to lack in emotion. Surely with long term heroin addiction and prostitution there would be more... hard hitting pain. It sounds insensitive, but when I was reading, it seemed as though the author drifted into this world and drifted out. I found it hard to understand the desperation of her situation. When I read, I felt detached. Perhaps this was deliberate? I could certainly understand the author isolating her feelings from her memories. It must have been a difficult period in her life, and difficult to write about. What I'm trying to say is that I felt disconnected. I couldn't get into the story.

Now for the good stuff: I absolutely adore Kate Holden's writing style. It seems so melodic and lyrical. It was so easy to read and understand. Without being simplistic. Her writing is so beautiful, almost serene. I would be very happy if I were able to write so eloquently. I found her memoir somewhat frightening. The way she described herself before she became an addict, is very similar to how I see myself. Her descent into addiction and prostitution seems understandable. I could see myself in that situation, and it did frighten me a bit.

All in all, I found it to be a good memoir. Definately not the best I've read, but certainly not the worst. I think that Holden's writing style may be better suited to a novel, rather than a memoir. After all her columns in 'The Age' newspaper are always interesting to read. I look forward to reading more of her work in the future.

I have read the few reviews on this book, and I have to say, I disagree. I absolutely loved this book. This woman has turned her life around from heroin and prostitution. It demonstates how easy it is to become addicted to drugs (heroin), and how difficult it is to come off it, no matter how intelligent you are, or how determined you think you are. And the depths you go to (prostitution) to get more money to buy drugs. Kate is very lucky to have the support of her family. I would definitely recommend this book.

Although Holden's story was captivating and I read it with eagerness, I got bored fast. I appreciate her struggle with heroin; she gave me an insight into the dark world of addiction. She chronicalled her heroin career with honesty and I got to be there when she first shot up, her family's struggle to help her, and her downward spiral thereafter.

However, too much of the book was dedicated to her life as a prostitute. How many brothels and Johns did we need to read about? This is when my interest started falling. I found myself flipping pages to see if she was still writing about her brothel experience.

The ending, when she gets clean, just happens. It's as if she just skipped a huge part of her life. While I was drug through her daily life as a prostitute, I was cheated out of the experience of her recovery. This is why I give this book a 2.

I enjoyed the learning about the heroin and the prostitute business...It was a quick read for me, and as it is non-fiction, I didn't expect there to be a lot of fluff - but more about 'what is'. I do agree with the comments about not getting a feel for how she really got off the heroin, and would have appreciated more information in that area. I will definitely read Kate Holden again.

On a superficial level I did expect this book to be about heroin and prostitution. However, I was really hoping for a deeper insight into the process of acknowledging, confronting and overcoming one's personal demons. The latter is a process to which we can all relate whereas the former is a process which would be foreign to many of the readers. Without wanting to belittle the content of the book, the author's description of becoming an addict and then rehabilitating herself is almost jarring in its brevity.

In no way am I attempting to trivialise the experience, which is amongst the more harrowing that I have read. However I feel that the author has constrained herself by providing mainly a chronological description of the events of her life rather than trying to dip beneath the surface and sharing some of the more piercing insights that we as readers feel that she is capable of making.

The writing style is plain yet very readable. Overall I cannot recommend the purchase of this book.

Although I appreciate the author's writing style, I had trouble with this book. Ms. Holden is a gifted writer - her phrasing has a floating, melodic quality, which harmonizes well with her dreamlike account of heroin addiction. But her story feels so removed from the horror of her past life, as if she is disassociated from her emotions. She seems so blase about her years of prostitution and heroin use, and comes across as blithe and even proud regarding her past. The majority of the book consists of repeated descriptions of her "johns." These accounts were sordid and unpleasant (if not nauseating) to read and, consequently, I grew weary and exasperated with the book. The author seemed to just float into heroin use and prostitution with little thought or foresight. She eventually goes straight and it seems that her sole reason for getting clean is that she became bored with her lifestyle. The entire story is about a young woman who passively "goes along for the ride" without questioning her motivations or having emotional attachment to her actions. Perhaps this is the art of the writing - conveying a lack of care as addicts are known to do.