The
Memoir Series
Author: Marni
Mann
Summary:
Memoirs Aren’t
Fairytales:
WARNING: While
intended for young adults, this book does contains drug use, strong language
and graphic imagery. Reader discretion is advised.
Marni Mann
presents a Young Adult edition of her poignant and hard hitting cautionary tale
about the dangers of heroin.
"I could
feel my chin falling toward my chest, my back hunching forward. My body was
acting on its own, and my mind was empty, like all my memories had been erased.
There was scenery behind my lids. Aqua colored water and powdery sand that
extended for miles. I was never going back to coke. I wanted more heroin. And I
wanted it now."
Leaving behind a
nightmare that haunts her, nineteen-year-old Nicole and her best friend Eric
escape their home of Bangor, Maine.Starting a new life in Boston, Nicole
desperately seeks a fresh beginning to help erase her past. But there is
something besides freedom waiting for her in the shadows—a drug that will take
her independence away.
Heroin.
With one taste,
the love that once flowed in Nicole’s veins turns into cravings. Tracks mark
the passing of time, and heroin’s voice grows louder. It holds her hand through
death and prostitution, but it’s her addiction that keeps her in the darkness.
When her family
tries to strike a match to help light her way, Nicole must choose between a
life she can hardly remember, or a love for heroin she’ll never forget.
Scars From A
Memoir:
"I could
make up a story to cover the last eight years, but the scars on my arms told
the truth. So did my ankles, the skin between my toes, even the veins that had
burst on my breasts. Did my battle wounds really prove I was a survivor? Or was
I too damaged to be glued back together?"
Nicole had only
one skyline to remind her of the freedom she'd lost-a tattoo of inked buildings
dotting the skies of Boston, crisscrossed by scars. Heroin had owned her,
replaced everyone and everything she'd once loved. The past was supposed to be
behind her. It wasn't, but that was the price of addiction.
Two men love her;
one fills a void, and the other gives her hope of a future. Will love find a
way to help her sing a lullaby to addiction, or will her scars be her final
good-bye?
Review:
I reviewed a copy
of both books in this collection: Memoirs Aren’t Fairytales and Scars From A
Memoir for an honest review. Thank you!!
I’m going to do a
joint review. When I first read the summary for these two books, I was a little
weary. I’m not a big fan for drug addiction books, but since Marni Mann wrote
it I gave it a go ahead.
The first book,
Memoirs Aren’t Fairytales was a bit hard to get through. It also felt more like
a journal than it did a story. It was more of, “this happened to me, and then
this happened.” Maybe that was why I had more of a hard time reading it. I had
a hard time stomaching what the main character went through. With every little
needle, with ever descriptive example, I felt more and more sick. This book,
however, gave me more of an insight to what people who suffer addiction go
through, the consequences of what their actions lead too. This book is a reminder
that just minutes from you, someone could be suffering from addiction; just a
reminder that what this main character goes through is real and it isn’t just a
made up story. This story gave us all the gritty details that we tend to try
and ignore when it comes to addiction.
Throughout Nicole’s
story, you wonder to yourself if it is ever going to end. Will she finally
realize what she has done to herself and the ones around her and her family?
You continually see her blame everyone but herself. You continually see her
wither away from society before she realizes what she has done. The characters
in this book are real. They aren’t something just made up to create a story for
us. Marni did that. She gave us something that could really happen or quite
possibly has happened in our lives. It showed us how the people around us cope
and deal with what happens. It’s a terrible feeling and something I hope no one
has to go through.
When the story
continues in Scars From A Memoir, we see an addict who has cleansed herself
from the addiction that once control every aspect of her life. We see more of
her personality in this book. We see more of who Nicole is in this book. It
picks up 2 and ½ years after Memoirs. She has faced prison time and rehab.
In Scars, we see
the aftermath of what an addict has to deal with when addiction has been beat.
We watch her pick up the pieces of her life that she has destroyed. We watch
her move on from her life and everything that she has put her body through. In this
book, we are shown that every decision that we make, every choice that we make
our own, has a consequence. You grow more attached to her character and the
characters around her. I became more sympathetic with her in this book because in
the first she fought all the help around her. In the second book, she let the
people who cared about her help. She learns to help herself. To say I was
shocked with the ending, I wasn’t. Like I said earlier… every choice comes with
a consequence and hers was a really sucky one.
These two books
were amazing eye-openers. Even if you have never touched drugs before, it gives
you an insight to what happens to those that do. I’m not saying what happened
to Nicole happens to everyone who uses drugs, but it does. I think everyone
should read this book; if not to understand addicts more, but to understand
just in general.
About
the Author:
Best-selling
author Marni Mann, knew she was going to be a writer
since middle school. While other girls her age were daydreaming about teenage pop stars, Mann was fantasizing about
penning her first novel. She crafts sexy,
titillating stories that weave together her love of
darkness, mystery, passion, and human emotion. A New Englander at heart, she now lives in Sarasota, Florida with
her husband and their two dogs who
subsequently have been characters in her books. When she's not nose deep in her
laptop working on her next novel, she's scouring
for chocolate, sipping wine, traveling to new locations, and devouring fabulous books.
No comments:
Post a Comment