Cherry by Mary Karr
2000
Weight: 12 oz
Method of Disposal: Lending Library
Coming of Age stories, like the previously written about coming out story, are hard because they are done by so many people in so many different ways. It can feel like you have read them over and over again. The time this is written is also important for context. 18 years ago.
I was enjoying it but not overly blown away by it. I totally appreciated the young narrator reveling in her sexual power, but I felt like I was watching her fall into low self-esteem, drugs, bad situations with little consequence and not a lot of insight into the reasons she was spiraling out. We did get the impression that it was due to her parents not being overly concerned with her life, though they were there for her in very important and big ways when it counted. Her dad is painted as having some anger issues, and her mom does at one point attempt to kill herself with both daughters begging her not to.
It was not until the author, or maybe it was the letter at the front, someone anyway, pointed out that it was a sexual coming of age story written from a girl's perspective that I felt that old familiar rallying cry of pro-sex feminism rise up within me. I had forgotten that we have for so long not been able to read young girl characters as sexual agents in their own story. That we've had coming of ages stories for boys out the wazoo but not for girls. So, I can respect it for that. I don't know when life started ti improve enough that I forgot that, but I remember being a young girl now and hating Holden Caulfield and feeling like I could not relate to any coming of age story ever written. Given, as a super lesbian teen, I probably would not have related so much to this one either, but I can appreciate it's importance. I was busting with sexuality back then, but it was in a very different way, I think.
One complaint I did have was that I did not feel like there was a real ending, and I felt like the writing there was kind of rushed. I wished for something more, but I am not sure what it was. There was just this hippie, drug-induced, whatever whatever that ended in jail and then Mary's mom came to the rescue in a way that still made Mary feel angry and isolated. I guess with it being a memoir, maybe that is just real life? I don't know.
2000
Weight: 12 oz
Method of Disposal: Lending Library
Coming of Age stories, like the previously written about coming out story, are hard because they are done by so many people in so many different ways. It can feel like you have read them over and over again. The time this is written is also important for context. 18 years ago.
I was enjoying it but not overly blown away by it. I totally appreciated the young narrator reveling in her sexual power, but I felt like I was watching her fall into low self-esteem, drugs, bad situations with little consequence and not a lot of insight into the reasons she was spiraling out. We did get the impression that it was due to her parents not being overly concerned with her life, though they were there for her in very important and big ways when it counted. Her dad is painted as having some anger issues, and her mom does at one point attempt to kill herself with both daughters begging her not to.
It was not until the author, or maybe it was the letter at the front, someone anyway, pointed out that it was a sexual coming of age story written from a girl's perspective that I felt that old familiar rallying cry of pro-sex feminism rise up within me. I had forgotten that we have for so long not been able to read young girl characters as sexual agents in their own story. That we've had coming of ages stories for boys out the wazoo but not for girls. So, I can respect it for that. I don't know when life started ti improve enough that I forgot that, but I remember being a young girl now and hating Holden Caulfield and feeling like I could not relate to any coming of age story ever written. Given, as a super lesbian teen, I probably would not have related so much to this one either, but I can appreciate it's importance. I was busting with sexuality back then, but it was in a very different way, I think.
One complaint I did have was that I did not feel like there was a real ending, and I felt like the writing there was kind of rushed. I wished for something more, but I am not sure what it was. There was just this hippie, drug-induced, whatever whatever that ended in jail and then Mary's mom came to the rescue in a way that still made Mary feel angry and isolated. I guess with it being a memoir, maybe that is just real life? I don't know.
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