I ended up with four memoirs:
- Educated by Tara Westover
- Diary of a bookseller by Shaun Blythell
- Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood
- Girl with the lower back tattoo by Amy Schumer
The first three were all books on my mental must-read list after listening to the authors interviewed on Radio New Zealand; the last one I got because there was a buy-3-get-one-free deal at the bookshop.
I began with Diary. It's quite amusing in a Lake Wobegon sort of way and really reminds me of the Black Books tv show. So, not a waste of money but not un-put-down-able.
So I moved on to Educated. Which is a wonderful read. Westover's Morman-but-different family is fascinating and horrifying in equal parts. I was amazed at how great her family's talents are considering they have no formal education (apart from Tara and one brother, and that's not until their mid- to late teens). It was hard to understand how the family allowed one brother to abuse Tara and her sister pretty much without any consequences. The workplace accidents and near-accidents are hilarious and horrendous. It's a must-read and I will recommend it to anyone who will listen.
Priestdaddy was next. Actually when I was looking for Educated in the bookshop I asked an assistant and accidentally described this book instead. But he found me the right one anyway! So I ended up putting this one down about a chapter or two in. Not sure why - maybe at first glance it is too similar to Educated, maybe Educated is just a hard act to follow.
Funnily enough, Lower back tattoo was a great read (it made me laugh, it made me cry...). Before reading this, I had found Schumer raunchily funny. Now I just want to be her friend (but I'm not really in her demographic so she would probably find that weird).
Now that we have the two winning memoirs out of the way, I am alternating between Diary and Priestdaddy. I'm pretty confident they will grow on me.
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