3.5 stars. We could all tell stories about our childhood and our parents that would send people reeling. Still, there are people who have gone through a hellish upbringing, one most of us couldn't even fathom. Domenica Ruta is one of those people.Kathy Ruta, the author's mother, is a very troubled w...
There are books people need to get out. Personal works written to someone they love or hate that perhaps should stay personal. Often this is my reaction when I read a memoir. Nice story, but why? Especially when the writer has obvious talent I can't help but question him or her. Why not fictionalize...
I think it's just me, that I am sick of memoirs, and I need to back off reading them. After reading Her and Chanel Bonfire, I really don't care to hear anymore about messed up childhoods and the women who rose above them. I didn't feel like this memoir took me anywhere. I was just reading the aut...
2.5 Stars. This was recommended to me since I was mesmerized by The Glass Castle. Welllllll, they're both memoirs written by women with jacked up childhoods, but that's where the similarities end. Domenica Ruta gives you enough info to let you know her life sucked (addict for a mother, molested, ...
Another gem recommended to me by Powell's Indiespensable, and while at times I was frustrated with the memoirist, With or Without You fits in to the perfect medium between historical figure memoir and tell-all. Domenica Ruta chooses to open her memoir with a scene where she is riding in a car with h...
Check out this review and others like it at BadAssBookReviewsDomenica Ruta’s book is a brutally honest portrait of her childhood, her mother, her family and of herself. Although the subject matter is ugly and disturbing, Ruta writes it in such a beautifully and addictive way. I could not put this...
I don't think I can accurately describe why this memoir impacted me so much more strongly than, say, [b:The Glass Castle|7445|The Glass Castle|Jeannette Walls|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348702077s/7445.jpg|2944133]. I think it may have something to do with the way Jeanette Walls simply turned ar...
Domenica Ruta’s gripping memoir of growing up as an only child in a rat infested house with a talented but dysfunctional mother doesn’t have a triumphant happy-ever-after finish, but it’s haunting doing-okay-one-day-at-a-time ending has its own kind of power and feels more real. Tolstoy writes that ...
There's nothing like a memoir by a gal with a messed up childhood to make you feel better about the way you were raised. This wasn't the most horrendous upbringing I've ever read about but With or Without You made me grateful for my "normal" family.There's neither structure nor routine to life with ...
Domenica has an interesting story to tell, but this book falls flat. Towards the end of the book, Nikki writes, "In sobriety, memories return slowly and in the wrong order". Nikki's stories come as a stream of conscience. She often gets ahead of herself. There's no structure or timeline. She'll go f...
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