Looking Back - Still Waters

Looking Back... In an effort to transfer my book journal entries over to this blog, I'm going to attempt to post (in chronological order) an entry every Friday. I may or may not add extra commentary to what I jotted down in these journals.

Still Waters by Jennifer Lauck

Nonfiction

2001 Atria Books

Finished on October 7, 2001

Rating: 4/5 (Very Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

Anger is a poison ivy in the heart and if it grows unchecked, it covers all the soft spaces where you love and understand and feel joy. There's power in anger, sure, a power that can help you survive. But true wisdom is in knowing when to let it go. In Still Waters, Jennifer Lauck continues the riveting true story begun in her critically acclaimed memoir Blackbird.

Clutching her pink trunk filled with secret treasures, the last relics of a lost childhood, twelve-year-old Jenny steps off a bus in Reno and straight into the wide-open future, where no path is certain except that of her own heart.... Separated from her brother, Bryan, and passed from caretaker to caretaker, Jenny endures as she always has: by following the inner compass of the survivor. But when Bryan chooses a shocking, tragic destiny, Jenny must at last confront the secrets, lies, and loneliness that have held her prisoner for years. Embarking on a search for answers, the adult Jenny discovers that the past cannot be locked away forever -- even when unraveling one's own anger and pain seems an impossible feat. Now, in the warmth and understanding of her marriage, in the eyes of her child, and in powerful conversations with a dynamic young priest, Jennifer finds her own miracles. A hardened heart learns to love. A damaged soul finds peace. And life, once merely a matter of survival, becomes rich with the joys of truly living.

My Original Thoughts (2001):

Just as with Blackbird, I quickly became engrossed in Jennifer Lauck's continuation of her memoir. Extremely readable. Not quite as emotional as Blackbird. Could it be that the disappointments and cruel realities of a young girl (eight or nine years of age), might be less difficult for a teenager? Or maybe life got a little easier once she became a teenager. I couldn't put the book down. I'd like to read a novel by Lauck someday, but so far she's only written nonfiction.

My Current Thoughts:

I have a strong memory of reading this book, but it's not one I'd read again, in spite of the high rating.

Looking Back - Blackbird: A Childhood Lost and Found

Looking Back... In an effort to transfer my book journal entries over to this blog, I'm going to attempt to post (in chronological order) an entry every Friday. I may or may not add extra commentary to what I jotted down in these journals.

Blackbird: A Childhood Lost and Found by Jennifer Lauck

Nonfiction - Memoir

2000 Atria Books

Finished on March 27, 2001

Rating: 4.5/5 (Very Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

With the startling emotional immediacy of a fractured family photo album, Jennifer Lauck's incandescent memoir is the story of an ordinary girl growing up at the turn of the 1970s and the truly extraordinary circumstances of a childhood lost. Wrenching and unforgettable, Blackbird will carry your heart away.

 

The house on Mary Street was home to Jennifer; her older brother B.J.; their hardworking father, who smelled like aftershave and read her Snow White; and their mother, who called her little daughter Sunshine and embraced Jackie Kennedy's sense of style. Through a child's eyes, the skies of Carson City were forever blue, and life was perfect -- a world of Barbies, Bewitched, and the Beatles. Even her mother's pain from her mysterious illness could be patted away with hairspray, powder, and a kiss on the cheek....But soon, everything Jennifer has come to love and rely on begins to crumble, sending her on a roller coaster of loss and loneliness. In a world unhinged by tragedy, where beautiful mothers die and families are warped by more than they can bear, a young girl must transcend a landscape of pain and mistreatment to discover her richest resource: her own unshakable will to survive.

My Original Thoughts (2001):

How can a book that is so sad and depressing be so good? Much like Frank McCourt (author of Angela's Ashes), Jennifer Lauck endured a terribly harsh childhood. However, unlike McCourt's memoir, Blackbird lacks any humor to lighten the reading experience. And yet, I was completely blown away by this book, reading it in two days. The memoir reads like a novel, filled with heartbreaking anecdotes. The cruelty and suffering that Jenny and her brother experienced tore me apart. This is the first in a trilogy and I plan to read the next installment. Highly recommend.

My Current Thoughts:

I don't remember any specifics about this book, but I remember how much it affected me.