Her Last Death

After reading a review for this book on someone's blog, I placed a hold on it from my local library. I really enjoy reading memoirs, so this sounded right up my alley. It was really different and at times hard to believe and hard to read. However, I did like it and give it a B.

From Amazon:
Her Last Death begins as the phone rings early one morning in the Montana house where Susanna Sonnenberg lives with her husband and two young sons. Her aunt is calling to tell Susanna her mother is in a coma after a car accident. She might not live. Any daughter would rush the thousands of miles to her mother's bedside. But Susanna cannot bring herself to go. Her courageous memoir explains why.
Glamorous, charismatic and a compulsive liar, Susanna's mother seduced everyone who entered her orbit. With outrageous behavior and judgment tinged by drug use, she taught her child the art of sex and the benefits of lying. Susanna struggled to break out of this compelling world, determined, as many daughters are, not to become her mother.
Sonnenberg mines tender and startling memories as she writes of her fierce resolve to forge her independence, to become a woman capable of trust and to be a good mother to her own children. Her Last Death is riveting, disarming and searingly beautiful.

Parts of this book was so incredibly unbelievable. That a mother could do things that Susanna's mother does is amazing. From giving her 12 year old daughter cocaine, or taking her 9 year old to OB-GYN to get fitted for birth control "just in case" I was appalled but interested. It is somewhat amazing that Susanna turned out as well as she did, though it was a very long process. I felt horrible for a little girl having to go through the things she did, and it almost made me feel bad for reading it. In the beginning of the book, the author rights that this is just her recollection and that some things may be because of a faulty memory, which kind of through me a bit and wonder if the author was adding a bit for shock value.

Keeping up with the dysfunctional family value stories, my next book is The Wentworths which I just picked up from the library. I also got another book from the library that is out of my normal suspense genre, so I suspect when I finish these two, I will run to my gory suspense books on my shelves. Tonight the Wings start their series against the evil Colorado Avalanche with a new rule in place... no octupus swinging. It has been a long-standing tradition in Detroit and because other teams who are jealous started to whine and now one of our Zamboni drivers who always twirls the octipi around his head after picking it up off of the ice will be fined $10,000 if it does it. Unbelievable. Anyways, I could go on and on but I have a dentist appointment to get to and I am sure you guys really don't care so I will bid you goodbye with a Happy Reading!