Memoir Armoire

It’s hard for me to review Fury, because reading it was an emotional and cathartic experience for me, and I may have identified a little too much… But I’ll try. In our society, especially as women, we’re often encouraged not to feel anger, or at least not to express it. Instead we’re encouraged to meditate on it, or think about something nice instead, or maybe hit a cushion really hard — anything but actually admit it to the person you’re feeling incandescent towards.

Koren Zailckas had struggled with her anger since childhood, so much so that as an adult she wasn’t even aware she was angry. (Ever, about anything.) But when her relationship broke down and she moved home with her parents for the summer, she was (literally) brought face to face with the source of much of her pain, and brought up short by the realisation of how much anger she had inside her, tightly wound and shoved deep down.

It’s hard for me to separate the braveness of Zailckas’s quest from the book she wrote about it but luckily I don’t have to try too hard, as both are poignant and moving and ultimately triumphant.

An utterly affecting read that will stay with me for a long time.

 My interview with Koren Zailckas.

I absolutely adored Catherine Gildiner’s Too Close to the Falls, the memoir of her childhood as an unusual, hyper child (she had a job in her father’s pharmacy by the age of four and started smoking at nine…)

I couldn’t wait for that book’s sequel, After The Falls, about growing up in the sixties (and moving away from the small town close to Niagara where Gildiner’s father’s store was). I was looking forward to seeing how the bouncy, confident child of the first book transitioned to adulthood, and I wasn’t disappointed. She went through a lot of changes, from trying desperately to fit in to campaigning for civil rights.

Although much more poignant than the first book and featuring some really sad moments, this second memoir is just as well-written and I fell in love with Gildiner’s voice all over again. Her stories of the civil rights struggles of the sixties are especially interesting. In fact, it’s amazing what she managed to cram into her teen years (I mostly just read and watched TV…). I’d love to read more of Gildiner’s memories, so I was really happy to read on her blog that there will be a third memoir, The Long Way Home.

*Many thanks to Viking Books for the review copy.

Who knew that when Arabella Weir was saying “Does My Bum Look Big in This?” every week as part of The Fast Show (not to mention giving her chick lit debut the same name) that she was actually reflecting her own life-long insecurity? From an early age, Weir’s parents made her feel paranoid about her weight (even when she wasn’t overweight), restricting her potato intake and humiliating her in front of others until she hated her body and ending up over-eating in response. She’s been stuck in a cycle of binging and low self-esteem (with occasional bouts of ego, she says) ever since.

The Real Me is Thin will sadly strike a chord with millions of women who have been taught or have picked up that their weight is the most important thing about them, and it’s a “what not to do” manual for raising children to feel good about themselves. Arabella comes off as well-adjusted, funny, and kind but her story of disordered eating doesn’t have a neatly resolved happy ending. At least, not yet.