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Book Review of Who Do You Think You Are?: A Memoir

Who Do You Think You Are?: A Memoir
reviewed Good writing but ... on + 347 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 5


a grim story, dreary at times, though there is closure. Basically:

Overachiever from good family and underachiever from not-so-good fall in love as teens and marry early (author's mother and father); three quick daughters later (author is oldest), they're fighting all the time, and essentially separated. Author was father's favorite, which mother (and sisters) resents when he dies young, with mother transferring her hostile feelings from him to author-as-teen. Years of separation, followed by a (more-or-less) reconciliation with dying mother. Her teen years, even before the father died, kind of reminded me of a Dave Pelzer's story in that the younger sisters didn't mind the way the mother treated the author at all.

Be prepared to go through chapter after chapter of vicarious psychological and emotional abuse.