This month I participated in MEMOIR MADNESS 2023 – a challenge over on Instagram where we focused on reading memoirs throughout the month of March. It’s a little play on March Madness and I have loved participating in this. I love reading memoirs – it’s one of my favorite forms of nonfiction that I try to read throughout the year. So far, I’ve read 3 this month, but you are getting 4 reviews today because I read 1 memoir in February that I didn’t get around to writing the review for yet.
FINDING ME by Viola Davis
Published: April 26, 2022, Harper Audio
Narrated by: Viola Davis
Source: Personal copy
Summary:
In my book, you will meet a little girl named Viola who ran from her past until she made a life-changing decision to stop running forever.
This is my story, from a crumbling apartment in Central Falls, Rhode Island, to the stage in New York City, and beyond. This is the path I took to finding my purpose but also my voice in a world that didn’t always see me.
As I wrote Finding Me, my eyes were open to the truth of how our stories are often not given close examination. We are forced to reinvent them to fit into a crazy, competitive, judgmental world. So I wrote this for anyone running through life untethered, desperate and clawing their way through murky memories, trying to get to some form of self-love. For anyone who needs reminding that a life worth living can only be born from radical honesty and the courage to shed facades and be . . . you.
Finding Me is a deep reflection, a promise, and a love letter of sorts to self. My hope is that my story will inspire you to light up your own life with creative expression and rediscover who you were before the world put a label on you.
My thoughts:
This book had been on my tbr for a while and when I saw that it was selected as the February Dear Basic Buddy Read, I knew it was a sign for me to finally get to it. Viola Davis is one of my favorite actresses – I LOVED her in How to Get Away With Murder and this memoir was just phenomenal!
First, I have to say, this was one of the best memoirs I’ve listened to in a while. I loved that she narrated it. It’s a very powerful story to begin with, but hearing it from her voice I think the message is even stronger. I’m not usually a big fan of celebrity memoirs, but I knew I had to read hers and I’m so glad I did. This one is tough to take in at times, especially when she talks about her younger years – oh how this part broke my heart! – but I love that there is such a message of hope and inspiration to take from her story. She doesn’t shy away from the struggles she’s had as a working actor and I love how candid she is about all that, the financial hardship she endured and everything in-between.
I cannot recommend this book enough. Even if you haven’t watched anything she’s been in, I still would recommend this book. It’s probably one of the best memoirs I’ve read. And if you do audiobooks, I highly recommend listening to this one. She did win a grammy for the audiobook performance, after all!
Audio thoughts:
Just listen to this one…it’s narrated by Viola. Nothing compares to hearing her tell her own story. It’s incredibly powerful and ever so memorable.
****************************************************************************************************************
SAVE ME THE PLUMS by Ruth Reichl
Published: April 2, 2019, Random House Audio
Narrated by: Ruth Reichl
Source: Borrowed from library
Summary:
Trailblazing food writer and beloved restaurant critic Ruth Reichl took the job (and the risk) of a lifetime when she entered the glamorous, high-stakes world of magazine publishing. Now, for the first time, she chronicles her groundbreaking tenure as editor in chief of Gourmet, during which she spearheaded a revolution in the way we think about food.
When Condé Nast offered Ruth Reichl the top position at America’s oldest epicurean magazine, she declined. She was a writer, not a manager, and had no inclination to be anyone’s boss. And yet . . . Reichl had been reading Gourmet since she was eight; it had inspired her career. How could she say no?
This is the story of a former Berkeley hippie entering the corporate world and worrying about losing her soul. It is the story of the moment restaurants became an important part of popular culture, a time when the rise of the farm-to-table movement changed, forever, the way we eat. Readers will meet legendary chefs like David Chang and Eric Ripert, idiosyncratic writers like David Foster Wallace, and a colorful group of editors and art directors who, under Reichl’s leadership, transformed stately Gourmet into a cutting-edge publication. This was the golden age of print media—the last spendthrift gasp before the Internet turned the magazine world upside down.
Complete with recipes, Save Me the Plums is a personal journey of a woman coming to terms with being in charge and making a mark, following a passion and holding on to her dreams—even when she ends up in a place she never expected to be.
My thoughts:
I first heard of Ruth Reichl when I discovered her one fictional story, Delicious!, back in 2014. I loved that book and think of it quite often. I knew that I wanted to read more by this author because the one thing I remember from that book is all the food that was mentioned and how hungry it made me!
I remember when this book was released and put it on my tbr but we all know how that goes, so when this challenge came out, I knew it was the perfect time to get to it and I am so glad I did. I don’t know much about the magazine world, especially the food ones, other than the fact that I love looking through them, but I found this story to be very interesting. I loved that there were recipes sprinkled throughout and even though I listened, I did jot down the names of the ones I’m interested in trying – the Spicy Chinese Noodles and the Jeweled Chocolate Cake sound amazing!!!
It was interesting to get an inside look at the publishing world of magazines. As a book person, I’m always fascinated to hear any “insider” stories and this did fit the bill on that. I definitely plan on reading more of Reichl’s memoirs – she is quite a fascinating woman!
Audio thoughts:
Of course, I love it when the author narrates their own memoir. I just think it’s more powerful that way and Reichl does a great job telling her own story.
****************************************************************************************************************
THE LONGEST RACE by Kara Goucher with Mary Pilon
Published: March 14, 2023, Simon & Schuster Audio
Narrated by: Kara Goucher, Mary Pilon
Source: Simon & Schuster Audio
Summary:
In this unvarnished and affecting memoir, Olympian Kara Goucher reveals her experience of living through and speaking out about one of the biggest scandals in running.
Kara Goucher grew up with Olympic dreams. She excelled at running from a young age and was offered a Nike sponsorship deal when she graduated from college. Then in 2004, she was invited to join a secretive, lavishly funded new team, dubbed the Nike Oregon Project. Coached by distance running legend Alberto Salazar, it seemed like the opportunity of a lifetime.
Kara was soon winning a World Championship medal, going to the Olympics, and standing on the podium at the New York and Boston marathons, just like her coach. But behind the scenes, Salazar was hiding dark secrets. He pushed the limits of anti-doping rules, and created what Kara experienced as a culture of abuse, the extent of which she reveals in her book for the first time. Meanwhile, Nike stood by Alberto for years and proved itself capable of shockingly misogynistic corporate practices.
Told with stunning honesty, The Longest Race is an unforgettable story and a call to action. Kara became a crusader for female athletes and a key witness helping to get Salazar banned from coaching at the Olympic level. Kara’s memoir reveals how she broke through the fear of losing everything, bucked powerful forces to take control of her life and career, and reclaimed her love of running.
My thoughts:
I may not be an elite athlete, but these stories just seem to call to me. I had heard a few others talking about this one and just knew I had to read it and I’m so glad I did – and once again, listening to it made the story that much more powerful.
I feel like stories like this just keep coming out and that the more they do, more will follow. This story is for anyone who has participated in sports, who has children that participate in sports at any level, who isn’t sure about power dynamics or when abuse is happening. This story was heartbreaking at times but it also was inspiring and I’m glad that Kara had the guts to share her story. The biggest takeaway from this book is that silence can lead to horrible outcomes for everyone involved. I highly recommend this book to everyone!
Audio thoughts:
Kara telling her story in her own words is just so powerful, especially when you hear her become emotional and her voice starts shaking. You can’t make that up, you can’t force that or imitate that. That is real emotion.
****************************************************************************************************************
THE BABYSITTER by Liza Rodman, Jennifer Jordan
Published: March 2, 2021, Simon & Schuster Audio
Narrated by: Andi Arndt, Aida Reluzco
Source: Borrowed from library
Summary:
This chilling true story and “harrowing account of the evil that can lurk around the edges of girlhood” (Carolyn Murnick, author of The Hot One) – reminiscent of Ann Rule’s classic The Stranger Beside Me – follows a little girl longing for love who finds friendship with her charismatic babysitter, unaware that he is a vicious serial killer.
Growing up on Cape Cod in the 1960s, Liza Rodman was a lonely little girl. During the summers, while her mother worked days in a local motel and danced most nights in the Provincetown bars, her babysitter – the kind, handsome handyman at the motel where her mother worked – took her and her sister on adventures in his truck. He bought them popsicles and together, they visited his “secret garden” in the Truro woods. To Liza, he was one of the few kind, understanding, and safe adults in her life.
But there was one thing she didn’t know; their babysitter was a serial killer.
Though Tony Costa’s gruesome case made screaming headlines in 1969 and beyond, Liza never made the connection between her friendly babysitter and the infamous killer of numerous women, including four in Massachusetts, until decades later.
Haunted by nightmares and horrified by what she learned, Liza became obsessed with the case. Now, she and cowriter Jennifer Jordan reveal “a suspenseful portrayal of murderous madness in tandem with a child’s growing loneliness, neglect, and despair, a narrative collision that will haunt” (Sarah Weinman, author of The Real Lolita) you long after you finish it.
My thoughts:
This true crime memoir had been on my list since it came out and I’m so glad that Dallas and Sam decided to do a buddy read for it this month during the Memoir Madness Challenge. What a wild ride this one was…I totally binge-listened to it in a matter of hours!
True crime and memoirs are both my favorite types of nonfiction to consume, so when you combine them, you know I can’t resist! This book was such a unique one in that it tells the story of the childhood of a young child with an abusive mother who ended being dumped on more babysitters than she could count, one who turned out to be a serial killer. Somehow, Liza was spared from Tony’s wrath and she never found out his dirty little secret until she was much older.
I loved the way this story was told, alternating perspectives between Liza’s point of view and Tony’s, with additional perspectives along the way as needed. It is a bit of a slow burn at first, really setting the stage so that we get to know all the players, but then once we really learn who Tony is, it takes off. As much as Tony’s parts made me uncomfortable, Liza’s did, too because of her mother. None of this story is easy to take in…this is in no way a happy, uplifting story. It’s unsettling, cringe-worthy but so easy to see how it could happen, especially given the time it did – this all took place in the 60s on Cape Cod where drug use was rampant and police departments didn’t necessarily work outside their jurisdiction.
I can’t wait to discuss this one with our buddy group…I’m sure it will be quite an interesting chat!
Audio thoughts:
This was a great book to listen to and while I was disappointed that Liza didn’t voice her parts in the story, I did still enjoy the narration. I thought the two narrators did a great job brining the story to life and as I mentioned, once I started this one, I was totally consumed by the story and ended up listening to it in a matter of hours – I definitely would not have been able to do that if I didn’t like the narrators!
Have you read any of these or do you plan to?
