Sex, drugs and more sex and some more drugs. This is the starting point of this memoir as Donna D. Conrad tells us her experiences throughout the sixties on her early teens, narrated in a objective manner with very well detailed acts that lacked responsibility, or care, on her part, where her choices led her, many times into deep trouble.
From chapter one, we can see that there was a lot going on. She was young, and with sexual instincts running high, looking for adventure and thrills but most of all, a way out of the hell she was living in for most of her life because, apparently, the sixties were much wilder than we think.
The tick-to-tack narrative of Donna D. Conrad helps lot in the reading, as memories are told in a “this is all you need to know for now” manner, light, humorous, sometimes dry and factual and always to the point, and gives the book a pleasant casual atmosphere while we learn about her upbringing with the violent father that beat up her drunk mother, her need to be protected from danger, which created the lack of belief in her own actions/choices. Domestic violence is something that marks the book, and we as reader can see the effects, on the long run, on the kids that see that as they are growing up, something that many parents don’t even consider.
This is a great example of a book, because it lets young girls see the power of choosing, depending and not taking responsibility, and the consequences of it and actually choosing a better path, as the author did, in order to get to where they want to get, and have the life they dream to have.
It’s impressive on how well she can remember the details of what happened to her, what she was seeing when growing up, the smells, moments, what people were wearing and the sequence of happenings in very specific times when regular people would have just told in general ways. Yes, given the traumatic experiences that Donna lived almost daily, one can understand why such memories are so strong and vivid.
The more you read the book, the more you understand why Donna did what she did, and the less we judge on her deeds. There were just too many influences in her violent upbringing, given that she had a dad that beat up her mother, and the change of the role models in her life, her sister and brother, that made her be who she became, until she was mature enough to actually take the wheels of her life. The lessons that we take from here –such as the power words from teachers, parents and close people have on teens, and how much their expectations, be it good or bad, set up the frame on how they will see themselves – as readers should be passed to our kids and youngsters, while giving a hard look onto our own actions and the influence that they have on them.
Sexual assault, rape and how it has happened to Donna, is a call to the world, a call that we do our best to ignore in our daily lives. In here, through the retelling of her experiences, she sheds light on how men with rapist tendencies behave, and how to spot them, the way they take advantage of women in general and specially how normal and actually expected it’s for men to act this way, because, although this is a memoir about the sixties, not much, if anything has changed, and that’s terrifying and enraging.
This book is more than a memoir, and it hold much more meaning than one, it shows how the American society works, not the glamour, not the propaganda, but the real, the dirty and the ignored. In it, we’ll see and understand what many people go through all their lives, and how broken people can be, families, and why. The injustices of war, the communities filled with drugs, the fact that men are encouraged and allowed to rape and everyone just “is cool” about it, how schools destroy the potential of students and all in between.
This is a very hard, very real, and still very much relevant book, with a message that is screaming to be heard, because society, the American society does its best to keep this buffered. This book should be read by every youngster in their early teens, in order for them to see the consequences of choices and how powerful a single decision can be. Excellently done by Donna.
Pros:
- An EXCELLENT, POWERFUL approach onto drugs and reality. It’s enlightening on how and why people use drugs when the society around them is more broken than their bad trips
- A POWERFUL approach to the education that purposefully breaks the creativity and minds of students in order to fit a broken political agenda
- The rawness of it all, is told without a single watered-down word
- This book screams through it all, and all of its words are relevant today, sadly
- Vivid memories and details
- A smooth and pleasant narrative about it
Cons:
- None.
Scribble's Worth 