Rose Lamatt

This is perhaps my favorite of the Lamatt memoirs. I liked her little stories, again, written in a diary-like format (and once again rife with grammatical mistakes!), and her descriptions of her fellow homeless 'housemates' in the shelter.

I sympathized more w/Lamatt in this book, though I still find it hard to relate to Lamatt as a mother. She left her family-her drunken husband and her two children- to go live with a friend. She moved several states away, never to return, and called her children weekly, according to her. And yet she wonders why her 'family has abandoned' her. It sure seems to me that she was the one doing the abandoning, not the other way around... And so now, in this book, she finds herself alone without a place to live, her friend had died, and somehow she hasn't anyone at all whom she can call on for help..... It is amazing to see how people like Lamatt and her housemates there at the shelter fail to see their part in their fates.... But despite that, her writing is interesting and I found myself not wanting to put the book down.

It would be wonderful if Lamatt found herself a good editor, a professional one, who could help her with her writing, as she is a good story teller.… (mehr)

In this book Lamatt writes about her years of caring for her friend Carol, who has Alzheimer's. Parts of the book were disturbing to read, with the first troubling part right at the beginning when Lamatt describes walking out on her husband and kids. Just like that. Seeing her 13 yr old off on the bus and then bringing her suitcases into her friend's car... That was hard to relate to. And then Lamatt wonders why her kids won't talk to her years later. Hmmmm. Perhaps it has something to do with her walking out on them..

Other parts were hard to read too, though very informative- the poor quality of care that her friend receives in various homes, the daily struggle of caring for someone who is aggressive, confused and resistant and physically larger, and the constant emotional and financial battles, as well as Lamatt's own health struggles. I appreciated Lamatt's brutal honesty and humility.

I'm giving this 4 stars for the story itself, and 1.5 stars for the writing! Though it is written much like a journal/diary, the grammar mistakes are so numerous that it kind of detracts from it all. Missing words, commas inserted willy nilly, apostrophes where they don't belong, run on sentences and lots of dangling participles, etc.. I have issues with self published books for just this reason... Editors and proofreaders should have reviewed Lamatt's book; as it stands now it reads like a rough draft. Nevertheless, I'd like to read her other book, Is Life One Big Goodbye:Homeless Woman's Survival Story. Her voice is good; her writing needs to be edited though!
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Rose Lamatt has gotten rave reviews on her memoirs. Readers love her stories, her day by day accounts of her life. I find her books interesting, her story intriguing, but the writing is full of errors. And not just little occasional ones, but weird ones. Italics placed here and there. Apostrophes inserted willy nilly. Missing words, dangling participles, non-sentences... It's distracting. And I've come to realize, Lamatt did indeed have an editor, but somehow he must have had a blindfold on.

What's more, the second half of this book is an exact copy of her other book that I've read :Just a Word: Alzheimer's.

If you like reading diaries, and you don't mind LOTS of errors, I'd say get a free kindle version of her story.

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