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17th out of 34 books
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Cherry: A Memoir
by
Mary Karr
From the author of "The Liars' Club" comes this sequel--an often hilarious story of Karr's tumultuous teens and sexual coming of age. Karr dashes down the trail of her teen years with customary sass, only to run up against the paralyzing self-doubt of a girl in bloom.
Paperback, 276 pages
Published
September 4th 2001
by Penguin Books
(first published 2000)
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Cherry is the biographical story of a teenager coming into her own. I was told it was a great book by some chick on LJ and I was all geared up for a Great Book. It didn't hit the mark for me. It was good - but I just didn't feel like the story hit that bone of truth for me like it seems to have with other people. Maybe I was at that point in my life where you push away your youth and reading about someone struggling in a small town just hit too close to home? I don't know. I thought the writing...more
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Memoir by Mary Karr of her pre-teen and teen years. Unstable house, alcohol, and then as she got older, sex and drugs. Well-written and honest, but not that great a read.
I had high hopes for this book because Mary Karr explains that she wrote it to fill a void for the female coming-of-age novel. She claims that the world of female teenage years needed to be explored - I agree, so I was really looking forward to what she had to say.
The reality of this memoir is that it is hardly a "typical" growing up, yet she failed to deeply explore the aspects of her youth that may have been more universal. I could only identify with snippets of the sto...more
The reality of this memoir is that it is hardly a "typical" growing up, yet she failed to deeply explore the aspects of her youth that may have been more universal. I could only identify with snippets of the sto...more
First of all, let me echo other reviewers in saying not to expect anything like The Liars' Club. Mary Karr is still an enormously gifted writer, but while The Liar's Club had its moments of joy interspersed with various traumas, Cherry is just plain dank. Mary's exploits as a child weren't hopeless -- she had a resiliance about her that assured the reader that she'd be all right, or some version thereof, in the end. The adolescent Mary descends deeper and deeper into a darkness that she manufact...more
When I picked up Cherry by Mary Karr, I didn’t know what to expect. I had no clue that this was a sequel to The Liars Club. If I knew this, I would read the first book first. Cherry is the story of a young teenage girl coming of age. It tells about Mary’s unstable family, first love, and as she gets older, drugs and sex. So if you are not interested in these kinds of things, then this book is not for you. It also has very strong language, but you could just block it out (like I did).
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"Cherry," by Mary Karr. The Penguin Group, New York, 2000.
I knew I was in for a good read when I opened the cover of "Cherry," Mary Karr's memoir, and read the dedications: "... to St. Jude, the patron saint of lost causes." Karr is a bestselling author of poetry and essays, as well as her two novels "The Liars' Club" (the prequel) and "Cherry" (the sequel). She is currently a literature and creative writing professor at Syracuse Univer...more
I knew I was in for a good read when I opened the cover of "Cherry," Mary Karr's memoir, and read the dedications: "... to St. Jude, the patron saint of lost causes." Karr is a bestselling author of poetry and essays, as well as her two novels "The Liars' Club" (the prequel) and "Cherry" (the sequel). She is currently a literature and creative writing professor at Syracuse Univer...more
Not as good as Liar's Club or Lit but there were a some of quotes I liked. Below are a few:
After dad drove away from house and she barely could hear his truck:
"I still clung to the silence for the noise."
On first loves: "Because they rarely have any consequence (few marry their sixth grade sweetheart), people slight them. They exist in the thin cliché of bad country tunes, thus becoming generic, sandblasted of peculiarities. Our own features in yout...more
After dad drove away from house and she barely could hear his truck:
"I still clung to the silence for the noise."
On first loves: "Because they rarely have any consequence (few marry their sixth grade sweetheart), people slight them. They exist in the thin cliché of bad country tunes, thus becoming generic, sandblasted of peculiarities. Our own features in yout...more
i feel bad only giving this book three stars! i LOVED the liar's club, which, with the recently published lit & this book, make a kind of memoir trilogy charting mary karr's life from scrappy texas child survivor of mentally ill, alcoholic parents, to teenage coming of age & sexual awakening, to struggling alcoholic mother. i have lit on hold at the library & am still looking forward to reading it, but cherry was kind of a letdown after the magic of the liar's club.
this is the teenag...more
this is the teenag...more
Not nearly as good as the Liar's Club, unless you really really enjoy reading detailed accounts of other people's drug trips. To be fair, those episodes don't take up that much of the book, but something about this one just didn't hang together for me. I realize that adolescence is trippy and incohesive all by itself, and maybe that's what she was after, but I doubt it.
So there's the drug stuff, and some really good writing about sexual awakening (what's most gripping, actually, is ...more
So there's the drug stuff, and some really good writing about sexual awakening (what's most gripping, actually, is ...more
I didn't think this volume was as good as Liar's Club or Lit. I do like Karr's style and prose. There is a lot of Texas swagger in her. I found her high school descent into drugs rather harrowing. The God she refused to believe in certainly covered her with grace. Driving while tripping on acid! She could have ended up like so many of her friends. What I like about memoirs is seeing how other people come to make sence of their experiences and somehow survive, make it to adulthood (psychically). ...more
Mary Karr is one of the only writers I've ever found who accurately describes what it's like to be a teenage girl.
On first loves: "Because they rarely have any consequence (few marry their sixth grade sweetheart), people slight them. They exist in the thin cliche of bad country tunes, thus becoming generic, sandblasted of peculiarities. Our own features in youth have not yet been sharply carved. So in some way, we don't exist yet. Thus we mock ourselves for loving so easily a...more
On first loves: "Because they rarely have any consequence (few marry their sixth grade sweetheart), people slight them. They exist in the thin cliche of bad country tunes, thus becoming generic, sandblasted of peculiarities. Our own features in youth have not yet been sharply carved. So in some way, we don't exist yet. Thus we mock ourselves for loving so easily a...more
Mary Karr is a literary god. She is just brilliant. Her prose is like poetry but without the self-consciousness that usually accompanies prose stylists who write like poets and vice versa. She also manages to capture the flavor of living in east Texas - the turns of phrase, the slang - without seeming forced or pretentious. Just the writing alone is worth the price of the book, because the writing makes what has by now become a cliche in memoir writing - recounting a troubled, drug-addled a...more
I approached Cherry under the impression that it was the lesser of Karr's memoirs - word of mouth and general internet criticism had led me to believe that it didn't have the power of The Liar's Club . But by page 25 of this book I was already convinced that Cherry is actually the more complex and ambitious of the two books. Alternating between the second and first person, Cherry evokes a more universally nostalgic exploration of high school girl-hood, one that is richer and braver than t...more
3.5 instead of 3. I've heard & read various stories about Mary Karr & was prepared to not like her writing. However, I was captivated by Cherry & Karr's portrayal of the familiar yet stagnant life in a small Southern town. In the last section of the book, Karr mentions how she is always surprised when people think her personal stories indicate a hard childhood or how she developed personal strength. She thinks that everyone from her hometown could tell stories about how hard their life is & ...more
I was prompted to read Cherry in part because of a New York Times book review that declared "If The Liars' Club succeeded partly because of its riveting particularity, Cherry succeeds because of its universality." The Liars' Club is without a doubt a uniquely peculiar memoir of a cataclysmic childhood, and although I did not find Cherry "universal," I can totally see where the critic is coming from. Mary Karr does something strange in writing Cherry: for what feels like a goo...more
Supposedly Cherry is "not as good" as The Liars Club, but I found the writing to be just as eloquent and heart-breaking as Mary Karr's first memoir. More significantly, the story REALLY hit home for me: a weird girl grows up in Texas, trying to be bad but also smart, exuding as much confidence as possible, but secretly a shell of emotion, dealing with heavy family drama, but keeping a wicked sense of humor... I mean, I didn't take drugs in high school, and I never mouthed off to teach...more
The middle book of three memoirs by poet Mary Karr, Cherry follows The Liar’s Club and precedes the recently published Lit. Karr, born around 1955, is from Leechfield, in East Texas, a refinery town of bleak prospects and hard-shelled, terse, tough-talking, bad-ass people, some of them, like herself and family, crazy, others, like her high school vice principal, noxiously conventional.
The Liar’s Club, which was a huge success commercially and critically, told about her family, her p...more
The Liar’s Club, which was a huge success commercially and critically, told about her family, her p...more
Like "The Liar's Club," Karr's first book in her series of memoirs, this second installment was greatly enjoyable. I feel as if I can hear Karr's voice when I read her words, and I could listen to her stories for long uninterrupted chunks of time. In this book she again brings the people and experiences of her past to vivid life.
On occasion I felt a little thrown by her habit of interrupting the story's flow and ending paragraphs with quoted lines of poetry or a reflection on...more
On occasion I felt a little thrown by her habit of interrupting the story's flow and ending paragraphs with quoted lines of poetry or a reflection on...more
As I delved into The Liar's Club, Mary Karr's first memoir, it occurred to me I had another of her books on the shelf. I couldn't remember much about Cherry, beyond its "sexual awakening" theme, but thought it would be interesting to read about Karr's teenage years just after reading about her childhood.
Eh.
The book stands alone, but it shouldn't. She mostly sets aside the horrors of her childhood to explore boys and drugs, relegating trauma (including hints abou...more
Eh.
The book stands alone, but it shouldn't. She mostly sets aside the horrors of her childhood to explore boys and drugs, relegating trauma (including hints abou...more
What the fuck is wrong with me?
A review in 20 questions
by: Caris
Why did I pick this book up?
What did I expect to find?
Why did I not bother to read the blurb?
How did this become a bestseller?
Was the prologue as uninteresting as I thought it was?
Why was the first part written in first-person and the rest in second?
Who writes a memoir in second person?
Who thinks her experiences are universal enough to write in second person?
Why...more
A review in 20 questions
by: Caris
Why did I pick this book up?
What did I expect to find?
Why did I not bother to read the blurb?
How did this become a bestseller?
Was the prologue as uninteresting as I thought it was?
Why was the first part written in first-person and the rest in second?
Who writes a memoir in second person?
Who thinks her experiences are universal enough to write in second person?
Why...more
i am pretty sure this one is getting only two stars because my expectations were so high going in. the liar's club is one of my all time favorite memoirs. it is one of my all time favorite books.
karr's writing here is while very good, not nearly in the same league as it is when she paints those childhood years. there was also something of a lack of focus here. the last say 6th of the book just seemed to meander astray. I guess sometimes life does that, but this felt more like "i need ...more
karr's writing here is while very good, not nearly in the same league as it is when she paints those childhood years. there was also something of a lack of focus here. the last say 6th of the book just seemed to meander astray. I guess sometimes life does that, but this felt more like "i need ...more
Cherry has two distinct features that set it apart from other memoirs I have read recently: first, It’s written in second person. The narrator separates herself from the character moving through the world and looks away at her as a “you,” giving the illusion that the audience is a disembodied self. The second characteristic is the linear structure of the book. This is not a series of vignettes or short stories. This is a long arcing book, moving from elementary school to the twilight of hig...more
Somehow Mary Karr's prose lost a little of its magic in her sequel to the marvelous The Liars' Club. Cherry is also beautifully written, but part of Karr's spell is lost because her story--about her drift into "knowingness" more than simply the loss of her virginity--is aimless, a series of anecdotes that loop back on themselves searching for meaning. While I happily waded through sentences and imagery that took my breath away in her former book, in this one, it felt like trying to c...more
Better than I remembered, although nowhere as good as Karr's debut memoir, "The Liars' Club". The premise of this memoir - Karr's burgeoning sexuality and development from child to young woman - is slightly disingenuous, because although Karr does include anecdotes about both topics, there really is no epiphany or - frankly - point to this chronicle. Karr is a talented writer, and clearly has a gift for language, especially when it comes to remembering dialogue, and her family is by ...more
funny, riveting, wrenching. a portrait of a lost teenager searching for a pack. the only negative lies in the fact that mary karr (to her credit) is an accomplished poet...and poets must create vivid imagery with every word and every phrase. karr succeeds brilliantly as a poet in this book, but because the novel deals with such painful material, the density and vividness of the prose gets exhausting about halfway through. I couldn't wait to finish it to see how the story resolved, but the langua...more
This memoir follows a teenage girl who has had a less than easy life growing up in her drab hometown of Texas. It shows her journey of sexual experiences, her journey to California, and her encounter with drugs.The story is set in the 70's and illustrates the life of an anxious and eager girl finding her way through life and dealing with that typical teenage angst. Her descriptions of sexual experiences at a young age are so vivid you cant help but look back at your own and relate to this char...more
A level above the writing in an average "this is the story of my life" and often spot-on about young girls and lust and friendship and parents and feelings...but also often veers into the A. Burroughs School of Can't Be True About Your Parents or your Community Memoir Writing and distrust in the narrator is the death-knell in interest for me, no matter how beautifully written. Also disconcerting, the use of the Second Person - about 3/4 of the way through it started driving me bonkers ...more
Joyce Hansen
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Shelves:
adolescence,
alcoholism,
american,
autobiography,
biography,
childhood,
coming-of-age,
dysfunctional-family,
family,
memoir,
poetry,
poets,
southern,
texas,
women,
1970s,
2000,
2006,
books-i-own
Summary: Karr's highly-anticipated follow-up memoir, covers her life up to the age of seventeen: through deep and abiding friendships, through early and touchingly hilarious experiments with sex, through the process of self-creation a young girl goes through when there's nobody around to show her the way. The book is divided into three parts: "Elementary's End", about the summer when Mary was between the fifth and sixth grade; "Midway", about her junior high school years,and...more
I have been wanting to read Mary Karr's memoirs because she is an alum of my college. Cherry is her account of adolescence, basically middle school through high school. I was surprised at first at her somewhat stream of consciousness writing, and how she changes narration style from first person to second person mid chapter sometimes. But once I got used to it, I cruised through the book. As with a lot of writers who publish memoirs, she had a pretty rough childhood and yet manages to make i...more
I enjoyed this second chapter in the memoirs of Mary Karr. I remember some reviewer writing that her first book was special because it described her unique experience, and this book was special because she so well described a universal experience. I agree - to a point. It amazes me that she taps so clearly in to the adolescent sexual awakening sensations, especially. However, an awful lot of the book was devoted to descriptions of events warped through her drug-addled mind, and that got old....more
| topics | posts | views | last activity | |
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| Mary Karr is my hero. | 3 | 29 | Jun 10, 2011 03:49pm |
Mary Karr is an American poet, essayist and memoirist. She rose to fame in 1995 with the publication of her bestselling memoir The Liars' Club. She is the Peck Professor of English Literature at Syracuse University.
The Liars' Club, published in 1995, was a New York Times bestseller for over a year, and was named one of the year's best books. It delves vividly and often humorously into her de...more
More about Mary Karr...
The Liars' Club, published in 1995, was a New York Times bestseller for over a year, and was named one of the year's best books. It delves vividly and often humorously into her de...more
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“No road offers more mystery than that first one you mount from the town you were born to, the first time you mount it of your own volition, on a trip funded by your own coffee tin of wrinkled up dollars - bills you've saved and scrounged for, worked the all-night switchboard for, missed the Rolling Stones for, sold fragrant pot with smashed flowers going brown inside twist-tie plastic baggies for. In fact, to disembark from your origins, you've done everything you can think to scrounge money save selling your spanking young pussy.”
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“And you snap ou of it. Or are snapped out of it. Never again will you lay a hand against yourself, not as long as there are plums to eat and somebody--anybody--who gives enough of a damn to haul them to you. So long as you bear the least nibblet of love for any other creature in this dark world, though in love portions are never stingy. There are no smidgens on pinches, only rolling abundance. That's how you acquire the resolution for survival that the upcoming years are about to demand. You don't give it. You earn it.”
—
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