Somebody's Someone: A Memoir [Hardcover]

Regina Louise (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 12, 2003

What happens to a child when her own parents reject her and sit idly by as others abuse her? In this poignant, heart wrenching debut work, Regina Louise recounts her childhood search for someone to feel connected to. A mother she has never known--but long fantasized about-- deposited her and her half sister at the same group home that she herself fled years before. When another resident beats Regina so badly that she can barely move, she knows that she must leave this terrible place-the only home she knows. Thus begins Regina's fight to survive, utterly alone at the age of 10. A stint living with her mother and her abusive boyfriend is followed by a stay with her father's lily white wife and daughters, who ignore her before turning to abuse and ultimately kicking her out of the house. Regina then tries everything in her search for someone to care for her and to care about, from taking herself to jail to escaping countless foster homes to be near her beloved counselor. Written in her distinctive and unique voice, Regina's story offers an in-depth look at the life of a child who no one wanted. From her initial flight to her eventual discovery of love, your heart will go out to Regina's younger self, and you'll cheer her on as she struggles to be Somebody's Someone.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This straightforward, sincere story of a neglected child who tries to fulfill her wish-to be a "wanted and special child"-opens when Louise is 11. She's lived in a chaotic, violent foster home for as long as she can remember. After a brutal beating with a garden hose, she runs away to her well-meaning but ineffectual grandmother. From there, she pinballs from one relative or foster parent to another, all of whom treat her with indifference if not abuse. She ends up, at 13, at an Illinois shelter whose sheer normality (i.e., no beatings, and friendly people who teach her to swim and do macram‚) allows her finally to relax a little. Unfortunately, it's a temporary situation, and Louise's anxiety over leaving a safe place makes her behave badly. The author, who's now a hair stylist and owns two Bay Area salons, brilliantly portrays how what seems like "in-cur-ridge-abul" to adults feels like simple self-defense to a child scarred by maltreatment. When one shelter worker finally gives her unequivocal love, it turns her life around. If this were fiction, it might seem overly maudlin; its poignancy lies in being a true story. The narrator's vernacular voice ("When I did ask somebody about the... reason my mama left... everybody got deaf and dumb all a sudden....") can sometimes make for bumpy reading. But this rare look into the inner world of an unwanted child will enlighten readers concerned with the fate of at-risk children.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

It's not, unfortunately, an unusual story: Regina Louise was poor, black, illegitimate, and abandoned by her mother to the care of an elderly woman, Big Mama, more concerned with getting to heaven than the health and welfare of her charge. Writing in the idiomatic voice of her childhood self, the author brings her fear, pain, stubbornness, and intelligence up close as she describes her struggles to find someone to love who will love her back. After a brutal beating at the hands of Big Mama's grown foster child, Regina is shuffled from one home to another, angry, uncooperative, vulnerable, finding solace first in fantasies that her mother will rescue her, then in the dream that she will be taken in by a family like those she sees on television. It's supremely ironic that the woman who truly loves her happens to be white and is barred from fostering her. This is a harsh, often brutal, but always compelling memoir, and its very existence is proof of the author's personal triumph in the face of enormous odds. Stephanie Zvirin
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing (June 12, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0446529109
• ISBN-13: 978-0446529105
• Product Dimensions: 6.2 x 1.2 x 9.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (37 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,045,522 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

After living in, well over 30 foster homes, group homes and psychiatric facilities, and over coming dangerous withdrawals from inaccurately prescribed drugs, Regina took charge of her life. After missing many years of formal education and labeled 'below-average or marginal at best,' Regina's optimism and perseverance has helped her become a clear definition of resilience.

Author of the bestselling Memoir Somebody's Someone, her story has been featured on NPR's All things Considered, The Tavis Smiley Show, as well as, The CBS Early Show, Catholic Digest and Family Circle. Regina's poignant story continues to garner nationwide attention in Newspapers and Magazines including San Francisco Chronicle, Los Angeles Times, and the Philadelphia Tribune . She recently optioned her story for film as well as a play which opens May 2007.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars God Bless Her, June 2, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Somebody's Someone: A Memoir (Hardcover)

WOW! what a heck of a read! I found Somebody's Someone to be a page-turner from beginning to end--I simply couldn't put it down. It is about time that someone tells this story about the foster care system in a young girl's voice. I've read Dave Pelzers stories and this book is just as triumphant! If this is the first in a two-part series, I can't wait to read the next installment.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Can Anyone Love Me?, June 4, 2003

By 

The RAWSISTAZ Reviewers (RAWSISTAZ.com and BlackBookReviews.net) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Somebody's Someone: A Memoir (Hardcover)

Regina wanted to be somebody, anybody, someone loved. SOMEBODY'S SOMEONE: A MEMOIR by Regina Louise is the story of Regina Ollison told through the voice of a young Regina, age ten through fifteen. We hear first hand the account of her life as a foster child in Texas, North Carolina and finally California. Regina deliberately and painstakingly lays before the reader a first hand account of her ordeal as an unwanted child and what an ordeal it was. So much so that no child should be subjected to life that Regina led. While reading, a few questions came to mind such as, why was this child literally abandoned to a family friend with a history of harboring children and allowing their mistreatment by others? Were her parents so selfish not to want this child but as the years went on, continued to have other children whom they treated like gold? Were Regina's behaviors so incorrigible that she could not be loved?

Through it all, Regina possessed a spirit of wanting, forgiveness and determination that literally saved her from herself and others. At times her antics were humorous but for the most part, this is a sad account, told with a strong southern dialect, which forces the reader to savor the message that Regina was trying to get across to the adults in her life. Her voice resonates her need for a mother and a family regardless of color, which is something that no one inside of the system captured with exception of one woman.

While reading I was hoping to get a glimpse at Regina today and where she stands. I went to her website and discovered that she is doing wonderful things for children "caught" in the system. She is artistically creative and continuously giving of herself through the arts. Anyone who reads SOMEBODY'S SOMEONE: A MEMOIR will be affected by the life of Regina Louise. I highly recommend this novel if you can stomach the pain that may come along with it....

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I Want to Belong to Somebody, August 31, 2003

By 

Dera R Williams (Oakland, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Somebody's Someone: A Memoir (Hardcover)

What does a child do when her both her mother and father do not want her? When their actions make it perfectly clear that they do not love her and do not care what happens to her? Regina Louise, in her moving, compelling memoir, Somebody's Someone, chronicles her life as a child searching for a place to belong. Though she grew tired, disenchanted and weary, she knew there had to be somebody, somewhere who wanted her.

Regina Louise Ollison is an eleven year-old girl, born to a woman who had Regina's sister, Doretha, at age thirteen and then her, five years later. She is given away to Big Mama, Johnnie Jean Thornhill, as a baby because her mother is unable or unwilling to care for her and her father's whereabouts are unknown. In this household, every kind of dysfunction exists, not the least is physical abuse of which Regina is a recipient. When she is beaten within an inch of her life by Lula, Regina runs away and calls Odetta, a woman she remembers as her father's mother. Odetta comes to the rescue, and is eager to do right by her granddaughter but trouble always finds Regina and she runs back to Big Mama's house where she feels safe. Big Mama puts her on a bus to North Carolina with some vanilla wafers, a soda and twenty-five cents and tells her that someone may or may not meet her on the other end.

Regina is overjoyed to be reunited with her mother, Ruby, even if she has to share her with two younger brothers and Mr. Benny. Yet though she has her mother, she still yearns for the demonstrative signs of affection that never seem to materialize. The next thing Regina knows, she is on a plane to her dad in Richmond, California. Her father is supposed to be a songwriter and artist who spends long periods in Los Angles away from his wife and two younger daughters in the Bay Area. Again, Regina is unwanted and unloved and through a series of events, ends up in a wayward home for girls. The County continually attempts to place her in a succession of foster homes to no avail. Regina, who grows up on 70s television with a vision of being part of a Brady Bunch family, is still looking for someone to love her. She finds it in one of the workers at the home, Miss Claire, who shows her unconditional love.

This is such a compelling, heart wrenching story--- hard to read yet it begs to be. Descriptive and well-written, the sometimes illiterate, southern dialect might be a distraction for some readers. At times you want to wring Regina's neck, her behavior seemed to be the cause of many of her problems, yet it went so much deeper. The years of abuse, the abandonment by her parents (her father tells her he doesn't love her), and the lack of black role models all contribute to her problems. To see the confident Regina today, who is a successful hairstylist/businesswoman and writer, there is no evidence that she was once destined to fail. This story will grab you, shake you up and make you count your blessings for your childhood. This is truly a testament to human survival and the strength of the human spirit.

Dera Williams
APOOO BookClub