Skip to main content

The Liars' Club

The Liars' Club

Written by Mary Karr
Originally published in 1995
~320 pages
Rate 5/5

When it comes to writing reviews on memoirs, I feel like I should refrain from "judging" the book, after all this is someone's life story. So, I will start off my expressing my admiration for the author. I consider it brave that Mary Karr so willingly put herself into such a vulnerable situation by sharing her story.   

Karr shares her experience learning how to love despite growing up in a home where love wasn't explicitly shown very often. What do you do when your born into a family that doesn't know how to love? In Karr's case, you unknowingly teach them how to love.

I enjoyed Karr's commentary on the events happening around her when she was a child, she was incredibly witty. For a long time I didn't really like kids, they seemed gross, messy, and loud. However, I recently started working at an elementary school after living in college towns for the past three years. and while yes there are kids that perpetuate that stereotype, there are kids who are just as witty as Karr. I have since discovered that kids aren't so bad. The sad part is knowing that everyone's home life is different, no one knows what goes on behind closed doors, that's the thing that haunts me the most after reading this book.  

To conclude, here are some quotes from the book:

"Daddy said a Republican was somebody who couldn’t enjoy eating unless he knew somebody else was hungry"

"Sure the world breeds monsters, but kindness grows just as wild"

"I lock all my scaredness down in my stomach until the fear hardens into something I hardly notice. I myself harden into a person that I hardly notice."

"He took a washrag and a jug of wood alcohol to get rid of her makeup, saying he wanted to know what he was getting into."

Author Website: Mary Karr


Follow me on Goodreads: KJ Webster on Goodreads
Follow me on Instagram @_kjreads 
Labels:

Popular Posts

The Shining

  The Shining Written by Stephen King About 560 pages (mass market paper back ed.) Originally published in 1977 Rate 4/5 This is the second book my Themes in Literature class is reading. So far we have only covered Carrie ( hover over this to check out my book review for Carrie ). Though this story has been referenced in the media many times throughout my existence, I tried to avoid it at all costs because I wasn't a fan of horror. Junior year of high school I took a film studies class. The "here's Johnny" scene was briefly mentioned and I was so scared. After reading the book, I now realize how exaggerated my feelings about this story were. I haven't watched the movie and maybe if I did then I would side with my younger self, but right now I feel a little embarrassed. The book wasn't that scary. What is The Shining about? Jack Torrance has recently been fired. One of his good friends gets him a job at The Outlook Hotel, his job is to look after the hotel for
Read more

The Siren

The Siren written by: Kiera Cass Genre(s): fantasy, fiction, and young adult Rate: 9/10 About the book: Kahlen is a young girl who is saved by the ocean after the boat she was on was destroyed. She then becomes a siren and is bound to serve the ocean for 90 years. After she has served her time, she can be set free and live a normal life forgetting about the time she was a siren. However, there are rules to her sentence as a siren and if she breaks them more time will be added. When she finds the love of her life, she breaks a rule. The ocean favors her the most out of all the sirens, so will she get time added or will the ocean set her free? Why I liked the book: The conflict was very well centered through out the whole book, things were added to the conflict that were reasonable making the book more of a page turner. The rules were simple and easy to follow. It gave a different point of view on sirens that I liked a lot, made them seem more human. A great sisterly bond that mad
Read more

Love & Olives

Love & Olives Published in 2020 with close to 500 pages Written by: Jenna Evans Welch Rate: 10/10 My summary of Love & Olives : Olive (Liv) Varanakis starts receiving postcards from her father (Nico) who she hasn't heard from in well over nine years. The last time Liv saw Nico, they were talking about finding the lost city of Atlantis, more importantly, how they were going to find the city together -- then he left.  Throughout Love & Olives Liv struggles with a lot of anxiety, especially when she finds out she has to go to Greece to visit her father and help him make a documentary for National Geographic (about the lost city of Atlantis.) Liv makes it to Greece only to discover her father made a whole new life for himself. While in Greece she meets a teenage boy named Theo, who is as obsessed about finding Atlantis as her father is. Liv not only discovers herself but also discovers how history rewrites itself without people realizing it.  My opinion about Love & O
Read more