Marian Hughes

This is really a delightful and insightful memoir. The author had a knack for making it quite clear how horrendous her childhood was in so many ways, while somehow not making the book incredibly depressing -- this is NOT "misery lit" although it may sound like it on the surface.

Marian's father committed suicide when she was an infant and her mother suffered from a serious mental illness. She and her three older siblings were raised in a orphanage before being returned to their mother's care when Marian was, I think, eight. Unfortunately, Marian's mother was incapable of taking care of her children or even herself, and the family sank into dire levels of squalor and poverty. Marian stopped going to school and learned to steal in order to eat, and constantly cycled in and out of trouble with the juvenile authorities as a result, even as her mother treated her horribly at home. Yet I couldn't bring myself to feel too sad about her situation, because Marian was, for lack of a better word, spunky, and I was sure she would be able to make something of herself in spite of her dire upbringing. I'm glad it turned out I was right.… (mehr)