Never Simple by Liz Scheier
Liz Scheier grew up in Manhattan as the only child of her single mother, Judith. Judith was extremely charming and outgoing and would do anything for her only child. But, she was also mentally ill with borderline personality disorder and could be terrifying in her rages. When Liz was eighteen her mother casually told her two bombshells: 1) she was currently married to someone Liz had never heard of and 2) that the man she claimed was Liz's father was completely fabricated (she had a biological father who was dead, but all the details she'd told Liz were made up). This was the beginning of Liz's search for not only who were father actually was, but also how much of her childhood was lies and what exactly was the truth. Once Liz is out of her mother's house she begins to figure out that her childhood was anything but normal and starts to figure out how to create some boundaries with her mother. But, it takes her having children of her own to really create and enforce some hard boundaries with her mother. At the end of her life Judith was mentally ill, dealing with dementia and other physical health issues, and about to be evicted from her apartment. Liz has to sort through the painful emotions of how to help her mother without becoming too entangled again and still maintaining a safe home for her own children. A darkly humorous account of a daughter's struggle with a mentally ill mother.
Some reviews I read said that the memoir focused too much on Liz's personal life and not her relationship with her mother, others said she came across like she was trying to justify not helping her mother more at the end of her life. I think the memoir was well-balanced in that Liz's whole life was about trying to figure out her mother and also herself. With no real parental guidance in her life Liz was on her own for her whole life. To me it made sense that a big chunk of the book was about Liz's 20's and 30's and you can see how she was trying to figure things out. The beginning and the end were more about the realities of living with a mentally ill parent (as a child and then later as an adult and parent herself). Overall, I thought it was very well done. I would tentatively compare it to The Glass Castle but more from the perspective of the child in their 20's and 30's instead of childhood. It's similar to The Glass Castle in that I think Jeannette Walls father and Liz Scheier's mother very much loved them, but were severely handicapped as parents by mental illness and/or addictions.
Some reviews I read said that the memoir focused too much on Liz's personal life and not her relationship with her mother, others said she came across like she was trying to justify not helping her mother more at the end of her life. I think the memoir was well-balanced in that Liz's whole life was about trying to figure out her mother and also herself. With no real parental guidance in her life Liz was on her own for her whole life. To me it made sense that a big chunk of the book was about Liz's 20's and 30's and you can see how she was trying to figure things out. The beginning and the end were more about the realities of living with a mentally ill parent (as a child and then later as an adult and parent herself). Overall, I thought it was very well done. I would tentatively compare it to The Glass Castle but more from the perspective of the child in their 20's and 30's instead of childhood. It's similar to The Glass Castle in that I think Jeannette Walls father and Liz Scheier's mother very much loved them, but were severely handicapped as parents by mental illness and/or addictions.
The Woman They Could Not Silence by Kate Moore
Most people don't recognize the name Elizabeth Packard, but we should. Elizabeth was shipped off to an insane asylum in 1860 when her husband of 21 years decides he doesn't like the fact that she's become vocal in disagreeing with his theology. She's taken away from her 6 children and dropped off at the state insane asylum. She initially thinks the asylum director, Dr. Andrew McFarland, will recognize that she isn't insane, but she soon realizes he is very much in cahoots with her husband and had no intention of recognizing her sanity. Elizabeth spends three long years in the state asylum - much of that time she's put in the ward with the worst patients (those who are likely actually insane and violent) as a punishment for fighting for her freedom. When she is released - basically because the director is sick of her and she's riling the other patients up - her husband immediately locks her in their home and is planning to ship her off to another asylum where her lifelong commitment is guaranteed. At this time in history women are seen as the sole property of their husbands and have no right to their own personal freedom, money, property, or children. Once Elizabeth is out of the state asylum she makes it her sole purpose in life to change that - and she does. "By her own reckoning, she secured the passage of thirty-four bills in forty-four legislatures across twenty-four states. She campaigned for women's equal rights and for the rights of the mentally ill - the former, tellingly, usually a much harder sell than the latter. And she achieved widespread, long-lasting change, including, for example, the establishment of independent bodies that inspected asylums with the power to go above boards of trustees. Remarkably, in certain states, she was even successful in insisting that a female inspector be included." (p. 437) Sadly, her story, while not totally lost to history, is marred by the fact that she was accused of being insane and was committed to an insane asylum. The same accusation that continues to be thrown at women who stand up to injustice or demand equality - although thankfully today we can't be committed against our wills as easily.
While this book is long, it is a quick read. After reading the first few chapters I actually cheated and Googled her to make sure she did actually get out of the asylum! Elizabeth Packard was a woman ahead of her time and sadly like many trailblazers she took the hits forging a new path to benefit future generations of women. She took what her husband intended for harm and turned it into a cause that changed laws and the future for women. I was continually amazed at her strength and grit to not only survive, but thrive and make the asylum better while she was there. This is truly a name every woman should know.
Some quotes I liked:
"'As soon as [the allegation of insanity] has been whispered abroad, its subject finds himself...viewed with distrust,' explained a leading nineteenth-century psychiatrist. 'There still lingers something of the same mysterious dread which, in early times, gave him the attributes of the supernatural.' It was not so many years since the whisper would not have been 'insane' but 'witch.'...(p. 16)
"'The working of this Institution is so carefully covered up,' she thought, 'and so artfully concealed from the public eye, that the external world knows nothing of the 'hidden life of the prisoner' within.' If only, she thought, someone could reveal it. Perhaps that person could be her...'It shall be one of the highest aspirations of my earth-life, to expose these evils for the purpose of remedying them,' she announced. 'It shall be said of me, 'She hath done what she could.'" (p. 151)
"If only she wasn't so persuasive. So damn compelling. She had, McFarland thought, a 'more than lawyer-like ability to put her own case.' And in the only court available to her - his asylum - she seemed to have the jury of all its residents, sane and insane alike, in the palm of her hand." (p. 172)
"Back in January, she'd been given a binary choice by her lawyers, the latter option really just a joke. 'The only way I could secure any rights at all,' she'd been told, 'was either by a divorce, or by getting the laws changed.' Now, Elizabeth said fiercely, 'I chose the latter.'" (p. 357)
While this book is long, it is a quick read. After reading the first few chapters I actually cheated and Googled her to make sure she did actually get out of the asylum! Elizabeth Packard was a woman ahead of her time and sadly like many trailblazers she took the hits forging a new path to benefit future generations of women. She took what her husband intended for harm and turned it into a cause that changed laws and the future for women. I was continually amazed at her strength and grit to not only survive, but thrive and make the asylum better while she was there. This is truly a name every woman should know.
Some quotes I liked:
"'As soon as [the allegation of insanity] has been whispered abroad, its subject finds himself...viewed with distrust,' explained a leading nineteenth-century psychiatrist. 'There still lingers something of the same mysterious dread which, in early times, gave him the attributes of the supernatural.' It was not so many years since the whisper would not have been 'insane' but 'witch.'...(p. 16)
"'The working of this Institution is so carefully covered up,' she thought, 'and so artfully concealed from the public eye, that the external world knows nothing of the 'hidden life of the prisoner' within.' If only, she thought, someone could reveal it. Perhaps that person could be her...'It shall be one of the highest aspirations of my earth-life, to expose these evils for the purpose of remedying them,' she announced. 'It shall be said of me, 'She hath done what she could.'" (p. 151)
"If only she wasn't so persuasive. So damn compelling. She had, McFarland thought, a 'more than lawyer-like ability to put her own case.' And in the only court available to her - his asylum - she seemed to have the jury of all its residents, sane and insane alike, in the palm of her hand." (p. 172)
"Back in January, she'd been given a binary choice by her lawyers, the latter option really just a joke. 'The only way I could secure any rights at all,' she'd been told, 'was either by a divorce, or by getting the laws changed.' Now, Elizabeth said fiercely, 'I chose the latter.'" (p. 357)
Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro
Klara is an AF or Artificial Friend who is extremely observant and interested in everything going on around her. She is purchased for Josie who is a sickly child. As she tends to Josie and tries to help her in any way she can, Klara learns more about human emotions and needs. Josie's next door neighbor Rick seems to be her only real-life friend and their time together is limited because Rick isn't "lifted" or genetically enhanced. AFs are solar powered so to Klara the Sun is almost godlike in it's power to her. When it seems like Josie is getting sicker, Klara decides to make a deal with the Sun to heal Josie. But Josie's mother has another idea for Klara and her role with Josie which stretches the boundaries between people and AFs.
I didn't really have any expectations for this going in and I felt like the storyline was compelling enough that I wanted to keep reading to see what would happen. I do wish a few more things had been spelled out - what exactly did "lifting" entail? How big was Klara supposed to be - like an American Girl doll or the same size as Josie? Where was the story taking place? I felt like two things stood out as very odd - 1) Klara's belief that the Sun was person/deity-like and had healing powers. As an AF she was incredibly skilled and smart and that seemed so child-like that it seemed unrealistic for an AF. 2) that Paul, Josie's father, would help Klara carry out her "mission" to the Sun so it would heal Josie. It seemed odd that he would help with this obviously non-sense mission when he clearly didn't like Klara and the plans Josie's mother had for her and Josie. And the ending was kind of a let down too. I'm not really sure what the author's point was - that robots can never replace humans? or that messing with human genetics isn't a good idea? It's not really clear what happens to Klara either other than she's become outdated now that Josie is going off to college, but if this is supposed to be the future couldn't she be refurbished or something? Just an odd ending to an overall odd book.
I didn't really have any expectations for this going in and I felt like the storyline was compelling enough that I wanted to keep reading to see what would happen. I do wish a few more things had been spelled out - what exactly did "lifting" entail? How big was Klara supposed to be - like an American Girl doll or the same size as Josie? Where was the story taking place? I felt like two things stood out as very odd - 1) Klara's belief that the Sun was person/deity-like and had healing powers. As an AF she was incredibly skilled and smart and that seemed so child-like that it seemed unrealistic for an AF. 2) that Paul, Josie's father, would help Klara carry out her "mission" to the Sun so it would heal Josie. It seemed odd that he would help with this obviously non-sense mission when he clearly didn't like Klara and the plans Josie's mother had for her and Josie. And the ending was kind of a let down too. I'm not really sure what the author's point was - that robots can never replace humans? or that messing with human genetics isn't a good idea? It's not really clear what happens to Klara either other than she's become outdated now that Josie is going off to college, but if this is supposed to be the future couldn't she be refurbished or something? Just an odd ending to an overall odd book.
Cults: inside the world's most notorious groups and understanding the people who joined them by Max Cutler
I wasn't familiar with Max Cutler or his podcast about cults, but stumbled on this book because I am interested in all things cults. This book is a sampling of 10 of the cults that Cutler has explored on his podcast. I do wish he had given a little more reasoning as to why he chose these 10 as there were a few I'd never heard of (and I'm pretty well read on this topic). For each cult he gives a keyword that he feels sums up that cult or leader like Shame, Exploitation, etc. In each chapter he gives as much background about the cult leader as he can and how that may have led to what they became. There is history of the cult and how it ended. I felt like it was an interesting look at a few unique cults. There were kind of mixed reviews about this one, but I really liked it. I felt like each chapter covered the cult and it's leader very well and highlighted some of the reasons why it started, how people were drawn in, and why it ended. I'm not a huge podcast listener, but this made me want to check out his podcast to see what other cults he's covered that I may not know about.
Some quotes I liked:
"It may seem like a dangerous contradiction, but one of the greatest weapons in the arsenal of the psychopath is that, on a good day, people tend to enjoy being in their company." (p. 16)
"It started innocently enough, with a ranking system (Raniere had been inspired by Scientology's eight levels of Operating Thetan) made visible to everyone enrolled in ESP, and later NXIVM, by sashes that Espians were expected to wear around their necks. The sash system determined where a person stood in the hierarchy...To move from one color to the next, a student had to first earn four stripes on the sash they currently possessed. This was another studied variation of Scientology, which offers a graduated path they term the 'bridge to clear.'...During EM [Explorations of Meaning] sessions, a coach would take a student through an analysis of a thought or behavior to find the root cause of the student's negative emotional responses...In this way, Explorations of Meaning were very similar to Scientology's auditing sessions." (p. 286-87)
[On Credonia Mwerinde and the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God cult in Uganda] "Viewed on its own, her behavior stands out for its exceptional ruthlessness, but in a country whose history has been soaked in bloodshed, her cruelty had plenty of precedents." (p. 321) "In total, at least 1,055 people were killed in the Movement's final weeks, making it the deadliest cult in the history of the modern world." (p. 343)
Some quotes I liked:
"It may seem like a dangerous contradiction, but one of the greatest weapons in the arsenal of the psychopath is that, on a good day, people tend to enjoy being in their company." (p. 16)
"It started innocently enough, with a ranking system (Raniere had been inspired by Scientology's eight levels of Operating Thetan) made visible to everyone enrolled in ESP, and later NXIVM, by sashes that Espians were expected to wear around their necks. The sash system determined where a person stood in the hierarchy...To move from one color to the next, a student had to first earn four stripes on the sash they currently possessed. This was another studied variation of Scientology, which offers a graduated path they term the 'bridge to clear.'...During EM [Explorations of Meaning] sessions, a coach would take a student through an analysis of a thought or behavior to find the root cause of the student's negative emotional responses...In this way, Explorations of Meaning were very similar to Scientology's auditing sessions." (p. 286-87)
[On Credonia Mwerinde and the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God cult in Uganda] "Viewed on its own, her behavior stands out for its exceptional ruthlessness, but in a country whose history has been soaked in bloodshed, her cruelty had plenty of precedents." (p. 321) "In total, at least 1,055 people were killed in the Movement's final weeks, making it the deadliest cult in the history of the modern world." (p. 343)
Mala's Cat by Mala Kacenberg
Mala Szorer grew up in a small village in Poland. While she and her family didn't have much materially they had a loving family and enjoyed the simple pleasures of life. Mala's entire village was Jewish. She was 12 when Hitler came into power in Germany and because she was a child she didn't understand or think much of the rumors she heard about him and the Nazis. But when all the Jewish children were no longer allowed to attend school she knew things were getting bad. Mala was strong willed and as soon as the restrictions on Jews began she defied them. She routinely took off her yellow star and left her village to beg and find food. That was how she survived when her whole family was killed. She was out looking for food and when she came home she saw that everyone had been rounded up to the center of the village and were shot. She and her cat Malach hid in the surrounding woods for several weeks. Mala used her looks and intelligence to her advantage. She was blond-haired and blue-eyed so she didn't "look" Jewish and could convince people that her mean stepmother had thrown her out and they would take her in for awhile. Eventually she obtained fake papers and went to work in Germany. For six years she survived on her wits and with the help of her cat. Malach often sensed trouble before Mala did and helped her avoid capture and find good people who would help her. When the war ends Mala reveals her true identity to the people she was working for in Germany and thankfully they were sympathetic to her and let her stay on for awhile. Eventually she did find some distant relatives and emigrated to London where she met her husband Meir Kacenberg. They went on to raise 5 children together and as two survivors of the Holocaust Mala wanted to tell her story to world in this book.
Mala's story is amazing and highlights how it's often luck and grit that allowed her to survive when so many others didn't. She was strong willed, but after her whole family was murdered she wasn't afraid of death so she often took risks that others may not have. She also credits her cat Malach and thinks she may have been an angel sent to help her. Mala claims she never saw Malach eat or drink and Malach always found her even if they were separated by long distances. And once the war was over Malach disappeared never to be seen again. My only complaints were 1) the story is written in a somewhat choppy way - I think because English was Mala's fourth or fifth language. But, it sometimes makes the story not flow as well as it could. And 2) I find it slightly hard to believe that she had 3 different families offer to adopt her seemingly VERY quickly. Maybe that was commonplace then, but it seemed odd and not what would be the norm during wartime. But, it's overall a very interesting book about one woman's miraculous survival during the Holocaust.
Mala's story is amazing and highlights how it's often luck and grit that allowed her to survive when so many others didn't. She was strong willed, but after her whole family was murdered she wasn't afraid of death so she often took risks that others may not have. She also credits her cat Malach and thinks she may have been an angel sent to help her. Mala claims she never saw Malach eat or drink and Malach always found her even if they were separated by long distances. And once the war was over Malach disappeared never to be seen again. My only complaints were 1) the story is written in a somewhat choppy way - I think because English was Mala's fourth or fifth language. But, it sometimes makes the story not flow as well as it could. And 2) I find it slightly hard to believe that she had 3 different families offer to adopt her seemingly VERY quickly. Maybe that was commonplace then, but it seemed odd and not what would be the norm during wartime. But, it's overall a very interesting book about one woman's miraculous survival during the Holocaust.
Dinner for One: how cooking in Paris saved me by Sutanya Dacres
Sutanya Dacres met her future husband on a night out with a friend when she was home in New York visiting her family. He was French and was in town on vacation with a friend. They exchanged contact info and started emailing. Soon they were emailing daily and talking on the phone too. When Sutanya goes to Europe on a trip with some friends she meets up with The Frenchman (as he’s known in this book) in Paris and knows this is it. After three years of long distance dating they get married in 2013 and she moves to Paris. But what seemed like a fairytale romance quickly fades under the stress of living together full time and for Sutanya the struggles of adjusting to France and trying to learn a new language. Within three years of their wedding they are getting divorced. Sutanya really struggles with the divorce and what to do with herself. She loves Paris so she decides to stay and finds that rediscovering cooking for herself is what starts to heal her. The last section of the book is a collection of recipes.
I didn’t love this memoir. I honestly didn’t like Sutanya very much. I also thought based on the description of the book it would be more about food and cooking. It was more about all the dozens of men she hooked up with and how much she partied and self-medicated (both before and after her divorce). I was expecting more The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry and got the hookup diaries Paris edition. Overall, I would not recommend this one.
I didn’t love this memoir. I honestly didn’t like Sutanya very much. I also thought based on the description of the book it would be more about food and cooking. It was more about all the dozens of men she hooked up with and how much she partied and self-medicated (both before and after her divorce). I was expecting more The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry and got the hookup diaries Paris edition. Overall, I would not recommend this one.
