Top 5 Wednesday- Favorite Memoirs

Hello readers!

Today's topic is going to be my favorite memoirs. 

Two little disclaimers, one is that Sam our Top 5 host is on hiatus for the summer (June/July/August) so the topics I've chosen are random from either previous topics or suggested topics for the group.

Second, I haven't read that many memoirs, so I'm going to narrow this down to top 3.

Lets go!

1. My Lobotomy by Howard Dully & Charles Fleming: This book was my first memoir I read on my own and it took me forever to get through it. However, I am so glad I read it. Howard's story is interesting to me because of the maliciousness I felt from his step mother in his childhood and reflecting on that as a reader I can't imagine what it was like to put those words on paper or to relive those feelings. Then to see his abandonment in his teens and how in the end, he found his place in this world. 

The path he takes in life really just makes me realize that, as vague as this sounds, people are so different. It's a hard concept to flesh out into words here, but there are actually people out there who think "Oh, this new science where we insert a tool in your brain that has iffy results is a good idea." Was his step mom doing it to really cure him, or was it more of a malicious intent because if it doesn't work, he's no longer her problem? Identifying behaviors in people is why I like reading memoirs, it just makes you reflect more on why a person may do the things they do and since so many of them have an element of trauma, you get something meatier to dissect. 

I definitely found myself crying a few times through the book, especially towards the end and how Howard chose to speak out on what happened to him.

2. A River In Darkness by Masaji Ishikawa: I've mentioned this book several times before here on my blog, both in a review and in several different tags. So I'll try not to get too into it, however I enjoyed this book more than I expected to. Anyone who has any access to News, or even Pop Culture in America has an idea that North Korea is shady. How long that has been going on isn't something I'd consider myself very aware of, so to read Masaji's story and to see that it's spanned over decades and rulers was a bit surprising. What really hit home for me in this book was the tyrant government and how fickle their opinions can be. To be a person stuck in a situation where you may be hated for something you can't control by your own government, or because that person has found themselves in a grace that allows cruelty to other as the survivor factor is insane. It's the same reason why I find information regarding Russia and the Holocaust intriguing. It puts into perspective how lucky we are to have a government that functions the way it does in America, when it can so easily be a different story. I don't mean to get all political here, but I think it's important to remember where either our government started with the declaration of Independence, and also to understand where a country like Korea started their government.

3. The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls: The beginning of this book was fun to read, with Jeannette's family moving back and forth and doing what they could to survive and the skills they learned as children. It came off kind of light-hearted and really started to set the tone of the book for the emotional turn that happens once they move east. I felt so bad for Jeannette and her sibling when they moved to West Virginia to be with her dad's family. You can feel the carefree nature and happiness suck out of their family due to the change in location. I also think part of the change is that the kids finally grew up enough to understand a little better the circumstances of their situation. They spent their childhoods living off of get-rich-quick solutions and generous family members, not really having any investments or bones to build a life off of. Fortunately, by witnessing their parents shortcomings they are all savvy to what they need to do to make sure they can survive. It's not the deepest memoir I've read, but I think thats why I like it. There is some mental health mentioned towards the end, but it's hard to distinguish if that is a result of the events leading up to the ending or if it was the cause of the events. By keeping the note of mental health kind of vague, it's easier to relate to the people in the story because there wasn't something traumatic that happened. 

For those of you interested, you can find the Top 5 Wednesday Goodreads page here. As I mentioned before, the scheduled topics are on haitus, so if you want to join I would suggest checking out some of the older topic lists and everyone's' post to get an idea.

Let me know if you have any favorite memoirs below!