Sunday, November 9, 2014

Review: The Memoirs Series by Marni Mann

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.

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