That summer I fell into reading as into a deep well where no voice could reach me. There was a poem about a goat-footed balloon man I recited everyday like a spell, and another about somebody stealing somebody else's plums and saying he was sorry but not really meaning it. I read the Tarzan books by Edgar Rice Burroughs and fancied myself running away to Africa to find just such an ape man to swing me from vine to vine.

Mary Karr is best known for her memoir of a childhood spent in a rough and tumble Texas town. This is her follow up to that memoir, taking the reader through her teenage years. At the start of the story, Mary is a bookish girl in a place that did not value intelligence, and especially not in women. She eventually makes friends and then discovers both boys and drugs. It was the seventies and she quickly fell in with a group of surfer boys and their hangers-on, which suited her contrarian nature and need to push back against the often pointless authoritarianism of her high school. Her parents are not able to provide a good example or even rules, although they do occasionally come through when needed.

So you ride home strangely placated. You lack the wits to acknowledge the jail cell of the previous night. If you'd glanced back even once, given that arrest one hard look, a lot of onrushing trouble might have been staved off. ( )

Very engaging and well-written account of being a teen around 1970. ( )

«¿Quién lo vio venir?» es una de las preguntas fundamentales de este libro. Una pregunta por el pasado y por el futuro, por la identidad y por ese tiempo de la ingenuidad y la rebeldía que es la adolescencia. ¿Quiénes somos con doce años? ¿Y con dieciséis? ¿Quiénes esperamos ser y en qué nos convertimos? Y más complicado aún: ¿cómo escapar a lo que se supone que seremos?

Con su habitual descaro, en una obra adictiva, divertida y más sexy que nunca, Mary Karr escribe una carta de amor a la adolescencia. A su adolescencia, pues estamos ante una narración autobiográfica. Nunca más se estirará el tiempo como en aquellos años, nunca más estará el mundo tan nue­vo, tan sin estrenar, ni serán nuestros ojos tan puros. También hay dudas y miedos, por supuesto. Hay soledad y desamparo. Pero gracias a pasajes que nos harán estallar de risa y a una conmovedora y honesta empatía, leemos fascinados y llenos de esperanza el nacimiento de la primera amistad verdadera, el encuentro con esa otra persona con la que crecemos y nos descubrimos a nosotros mismos, que nos ayuda a ser todo aquello que no sabíamos que queríamos ser. Y también nos atraviesa el fulgor del deseo, esa nítida luminiscencia que re­verbera por primera vez, un conocimiento profundo que sacude nuestro cuerpo hasta transformarlo. Y seremos cons­cientes, también por primera vez, de lo que significa en este mundo ser mujer y la gran limitación de libertades que nos impone desde niñas. Como era de esperar, la joven Mary no se conforma: cansada de la localidad petrolera de Texas en la que ha pasado su infancia, se unirá a una pandilla de surferos y drogatas que se enfrentará a la autoridad de mil maneras en su camino hacia California. «Sexo, drogas y rock’n’roll», dice una de las pegatinas de su furgoneta. Pocas veces un libro ha honrado tan profundamente este lema.

Okay, I finished it but I'm not sure why I bothered. I'm not even sure what the point of the story was. The prologue seemed only loosely tied to the rest of the story, and the title character seemed aimless and uninteresting. The structure of the novel, much of which was annoyingly written in second person, did not intrigue.

Bookcrossing: http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/6744053/

Re-read in preparation for the upcoming release of LIT.

This second in Karr's series of memoirs covers her teen years in Texas, during which she wanders around stoned and poetical. She's about 10 years older than I am, and there is a lot of overlap in our respective memories. Her voice is pure and overcomes the at times awkward choice of second person narration. I do not become quite as immersed in this as I do in her earlier book, but I enjoy it mightily. ( )