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Disaster Preparedness: A Memoir

3.17 of 5 stars 3.17 · rating details · 200 ratings · 60 reviews

A perceptive, witty memoir about the transformative humiliations of childhood-and adulthood-from a unique, already-beloved voice.

When Heather Havrilesky was a kid during the '70s, harrowing disaster films dominated every movie screen with earthquakes that destroyed huge cities, airplanes that plummeted towards the ground and giant sharks that ripped teenagers to shreds....more

Hardcover, 256 pages

Published December 30th 2010 by Riverhead Hardcover (first published October 25th 2010)

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Mar 04, 2013 Kater Cheek rated it 4 of 5 stars

I've really enjoyed Havrilesky's advice column "Ask Polly" where she gently and empathically and sympathetically tells people in the nicest possible way exactly why they are full of crap and how all of their problems are their own fault. I love her voice, and figured I would like to read her memoir.

This is close to a "my childhood is worse than your childhood" memoir, except that it's more humorous than that. Havrilesky never takes herself too seriously, or thinks that her problems were as bad a...more

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Jul 07, 2012 Elliot Ratzman rated it 1 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Teenagers, people who can't handle real memoirs

Recommended to Elliot by: AJ Jacobs

I read most of this mediocre memoir on a beach in NJ so perhaps it was the extreme environment that soured it for me. I had snagged it up on the historic last day of Borders’ existence for a buck because AJ Jacobs endorsed it and the Library of Congress had it categorized it as 1. Pessimism 2. Emergency Management. Both Jacobs and the Library of Congress lied; I want a refund! In short: girl grows up in Durham, NC during the 70s and 80s with divorced academic parents. Yawn. My memoir-writing wor...more

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Jul 07, 2011 Karyn rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: memoir

I love Heather Havrilesky's Television Reviews on Salon, and so I was very excited when I found her book during my pillaging of the Milford Borders' final day of sales (I think I bought 20 books for $25 that day--thanks, bad economy).

Havrilesky writes about her parents' failed marriage and how its impacted her adulthood: subject matter that's right up my alley. She also does a nice job looking at the larger context of disaster during the years she grew up. In many ways, this is the memoir I've w...more

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Aug 21, 2012 Susan Marie rated it 3 of 5 stars

I've loved Heather Havrilesky's writing since way-back-when, like, the late 90s when I had a boring computer job and she was working with Terry Colon at Suck.com. The memoir seems to let her stretch a little--most of what she publishes rests on a kind of ironic detachment, but there's none of that here. Complicated affection for a disastrous childhood, plus a clear-eyed evaluation of her own adult life, maybe? The memoir of a mostly-ordinary life is a difficult genre, and kind of overdone, but t...more

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Apr 28, 2012 Candace rated it 3 of 5 stars

I enjoyed Heather’s musings on her life and the themes in all of our lives that truly require some disaster preparedness: parents getting divorced, first love, surviving middle school, our relationship (or lack thereof)with God, our relationship with our brothers and sisters, our parents, their relationships, parent’s death etc. Don’t get me wrong, this did not read like a “how to guide to life” like my list of themes might suggest. Those are just the themes of the chapters. The narrative has a...more

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Jan 12, 2011 Jennifer rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-in-2011

Heather Havrilesky's sister Laura was my classmate at Githens, Jordan, and Williams. Now my youngest child and Laura's oldest are in the same elementary school class at Morehead. So when I saw Heather, who is a couple of years younger than Laura and I, had written a book and was giving a reading at The Regulator, naturally I had to go! It was a packed house: classmates of mine and Laura's as well as Heather's, parents of friends who now live far away, and lots and lots of folks who follow Heathe...more Heather Havrilesky's sister Laura was my classmate at Githens, Jordan, and Williams. Now my youngest child and Laura's oldest are in the same elementary school class at Morehead. So when I saw Heather, who is a couple of years younger than Laura and I, had written a book and was giving a reading at The Regulator, naturally I had to go! It was a packed house: classmates of mine and Laura's as well as Heather's, parents of friends who now live far away, and lots and lots of folks who follow Heather's writing as a TV critic for Salon.com. I think I heard her once on All Things Considered, but I have to say I have not been up to the minute on her writing career, and I enjoyed catching up.

Heather noted in her remarks that the book was originally subtitled "Essays," as it appears here on Goodreads. The actual book cover says instead "A Memoir." I think "essays" was a better choice. Each chapter stands alone just fine, and most encompass many years, starting with how Heather's approach to a certain aspect of life (sharing or withholding emotions, for example, or determining the value of truthfulness) was formed in childhood or youth and has evolved over time. This means the chronological flow resets at the beginning of each new chapter. That's not unexpected with essays but can be a bit jolting in a memoir.

The book starts with the disclaimer that the stories are true but "certain names and identifying characteristics of some people portrayed here have been changed to protect their privacy." Fair enough for the people, but as someone who know the places she writes about, I wondered why Sherwood Githens Jr. High and Charles E. Jordan High were given their true names, indeed in more complete form than most folks use, but Imacculata, where the Havrileskys went to elementary school, became Sacred Heart. Other places, although not named specifically at all, were a cinch to peg. I loved the description, although fairly brief, of the old South Square Mall. It was such a prominent place in the landscape of Durham growing up in the 70s and 80s, and now it's gone. Ah, nostalgia!

The Havrilesky parents are worth the read. Mr. H was an economics prof at Duke, a somewhat sadistic dad who enjoyed scaring the living daylights out of his children as a means to toughen them up, a philanderer who, when his wife finally divorced him, kept several girlfriends around the globe at all times and advised his daughter, "'One girlfriend, or three . . . But never two. If you have two, they'll find out about each other, and they'll be pissed.' This was the sort of pragmatic advice my father bestowed: advice that made no sense (three girlfrends wouldn't find out about one another somehow?)" And yet Heather's deep love for him in spite of his questionable sanity shines through.

Mrs. H is well-meaning but has a hard time saying just the right thing: "My mom was about as bad at reassuring a little kid that the world was a safe place as anyone could be. She would start out on the right track, but then give up almost immediately, exhausted by the effort of forming optimistic lies she didn't believe. 'Some people think that there's a heaven,' she'd start out saying when some pet or distant relative died and I wanted to know what would happen to them, 'but I've always thought that was wishful thinking, honestly.' Or: 'The chance of lightning striking the house is something like a million to one . . . but, then again, it did strike that tree in the side yard last year, didn't it? Ane we are on a hill, covered by tall trees.'"

Both parents are a hoot to read about, as are Laura and Eric and Heather and her friends and boyfriends, teachers and bosses. It was fun to peek in the windows of a friend's house and see what life was like in there!(less)

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Apr 19, 2012 John E. Branch Jr. rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: memoir

First, why I'm suspending my reading. A dismissive review in The New York Times and a discussion on an agent's blog had made me aware of this book. An excerpt at Google Books had persuaded me that I might like it and find something useful in its technique. And when I later found a free review copy at work, an easy chance presented itself. Here's the rub: For the most part, I'm reading memoirs for possible lessons while I work off and on at writing one, and I decided when halfway through Heather...more First, why I'm suspending my reading. A dismissive review in The New York Times and a discussion on an agent's blog had made me aware of this book. An excerpt at Google Books had persuaded me that I might like it and find something useful in its technique. And when I later found a free review copy at work, an easy chance presented itself. Here's the rub: For the most part, I'm reading memoirs for possible lessons while I work off and on at writing one, and I decided when halfway through Heather Havrilesky's that, despite its merits, it didn't fit my particular current interest. I didn't need to finish it (though I do still want to know how it turns out). The method I'm trying at the moment is, odd as it may sound, modeled on a Harold Pinter play. If I change my tack later, I may return to Havrilesky's book; in my experience so far, it's a model of a certain approach to memoir.

That approach is, in a sense, essayistic, so it connects broadly with a long tradition dating back to Montaigne. Havrilesky presents aspects of a life illuminated with a dual light: experiences as they felt at the time combined with insights from a later perspective. Making this pay off may be Havrilesky's most valuable achievement. That she doesn't dramatize everything, that (to use a common criterion) she tells more than she shows, is no failing. It's simply one way of going about the task. It works very well for her; note how Havrilesky brings back motifs introduced in one context as commentary on another, often humorous or darkly ironic, and you'll see one of the advantages she has found in this method.

Of what does her life consist? Havrilesky grew up in the college town of Durham, North Carolina. Her father was a professor; her mother was a "faculty wife." They separated, then divorced, when Havrilesky was pretty young. She became, against the odds, a cheerleader. Later--the beginnings of this aren't clear in the first half--she became a writer, publishing criticism in Salon.com and The Daily as well as other work.

The popularity of the memoir form nowadays means that we can meet people like Havrilesky, who may resemble us in some ways (many are the children of divorce) but will differ in others, and whom we might actually meet someday. Memoir is peopling the published world of published personal history with a greater variety than we used to encounter, when it was expected that only the most uncommon and accomplished among us, whom we would otherwise never meet in any personal way, would chronicle their lives. As literary agent Betsy Lerner wrote in the blog post linked above, "The stream of prose is beautiful because it is rich with voices." Havrilesky's is now another one we can hear.(less)

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May 02, 2013 tabs rated it 3 of 5 stars

I haven't finished this yet and this wasn't particularly a book that hooked me from the beginning, but I would just love to point out how pages 144 through 147 just made me realize just how selfish and lonely i used to be as a child. The entire 9th chapter described very accurately how I used to feel about love and sometimes still do feel about it.

"Once I found a love object to focus on, the unspeakably sad, indistinct, creeping form of melancholy I was haunted by as a kid became a sugary, glowi

...more

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Jun 27, 2012 Denise rated it 3 of 5 stars

This memoir moves quickly and is easy to follow, but when it's all over with, I'm not sure what the point is. It's not much different from all the other stories out there--reasonably normal child suffers through parents' infidelity and divorce, suffers from abandonment and borderline abuse issues, has quirky friends, can't express herself without foul language, and finally learns to be a grown-up (who still has a foul mouth, so I'm not sure exactly how grown up she really is).

I found myself putt...more

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May 03, 2012 Tom Franklin rated it 3 of 5 stars

Heather Havrilesky's book is an uneven collection of looks backwards over her life. The first part of the book focuses on her early childhood; later sections start skipping around in time which made me feel detached from the immediacy of the stories.

As with many memoirs, her childhood is looked at with humor and her teenage years are remembered with barely resolved angst and, perhaps, slight embarrassment. Her early stories about her fears of impending global disaster and growing up with parent...more

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Jan 16, 2011 Tracy rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: memoir

This was a good memoir about growing up the 1970s. It was generally a series of essays. The book was not a compelling read in that I didn't constantly want to get back to, but it was solid. I thought overall, it was generally a 3-star book, but I loved the last essay so much, I bumped it up one notch. The last essay focused on how we would like to be the perfect mom with everything clean and neat and we'd like to be the person who hired people to help with every unpleasant task so we had tons of...more

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Oct 05, 2011 Stacy rated it 3 of 5 stars

I wasn't sure what to expect when I picked up this book but the blurbs on the back made it sound funny and intriguing and indeed it was. A humerous, often sarcastic memoir of growing up in a family that struggled to find themselves when their dysfuntional parents divorce. It wasn't on par with horrible families found in "Wolf at the Table" or "The Glass Castle" but there is heartbreak when Heather recounts divorce from a child's point of view. Even with parents that fought, it was a family unit...more

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Apr 30, 2011 Diane Bryson rated it 3 of 5 stars

I liked parts. I liked the writing -- honest and simple, and so many of her images/metaphors/similes are fresh. I
also liked some of her observations and that she's not a party-line gal (a bit irreverent), like her whole take on therapists as pretenders who put on an air of being so together. Instead of making therapy a regular part of her life, I liked it that Heather kind of moved on. And Heather does change. She tells the truth about herself to at least one
friend. And to her future husband. So...more

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Apr 10, 2011 Kieran rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I am a big Heather Havrilesky fan from way back. I like the rabbit blog and I loved her as the salon TV critic. But it turns out that some people just shouldn't write a memoir. They should write about other things.

Full disclosure: I read this immediately after I read the excellent Freedom by Jonathan Franzen. Havrilesky's book wasn't going to be able to compare to that no matter what. But really, Disaster Preparedness is a disaster - the whining diatribes of a spoiled girl who resents her family...more

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Feb 11, 2012 David rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-in-2011

Salon.com is just so much duller ever since Heather H. left. Their new TV critic has yet to write a column that maintains my intereest. Hell, I can't even remember his name.

Unlike the vastly overhyped "Bossypants", which IMO barely qualified as a "memoir" at all (Fey told us nothing about her life that wasn't already public knowledge), this memoir does not shy away from exploring some of the difficult aspects of Havrilesky's past. This takes courage, but Havrilesky's candor makes this a much mo...more

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Feb 27, 2011 Megan added it

Shelves: put-it-down

I can't bring myself to one-star this, because I loved Havrilesky's writing at Salon -- love-loved it, I've mentally given her a fist-bump about a million times. But 100 pages in, I'm setting it aside. On the flap, this book is touted as "hilarious." Unfortunately, it is... not. It's boring. Borderline joyless. Her writing is witty, but every time I've picked this up, I feel like the air is being sucked out of the room. Maybe it's my frame of mind right now, dunno. But my to-read pile is too big...more

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Jan 14, 2013 Meagan rated it 4 of 5 stars

3.5

Havrilesky's essays are honest and interesting and work in a sort of haphazard way. What at first may seem like a bunch of slightly unrelated tidbits and short tales all tie together in the end to work toward one greater meaning or concept. This goes for both individual essays and for the entirety of the book.

The essays presented here take us from childhood and all the things that scared or concerned her to her adulthood and how she has come to cope or not cope. From hearing her parents figh...more

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May 22, 2012 Melissa rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: funny, parenting, biography

This book was fun to read! Some parts made me laugh out loud. I stayed up late reading in bed a few nights in a row and my husband would wake up all cranky and ask "what are you giggling about? Ugh!" And some parts made me wince because Havrilesky is so honest about some of the embarrassing moments in her life. That takes courage folks! I've seen some reviews panning her for not being an important enough person to have written a memoir. Well, well, well, excuse me judge and jury! We all meet peo...more This book was fun to read! Some parts made me laugh out loud. I stayed up late reading in bed a few nights in a row and my husband would wake up all cranky and ask "what are you giggling about? Ugh!" And some parts made me wince because Havrilesky is so honest about some of the embarrassing moments in her life. That takes courage folks! I've seen some reviews panning her for not being an important enough person to have written a memoir. Well, well, well, excuse me judge and jury! We all meet people who are "real characters", they are hilarious and engaging and tell great stories. I personally don't think one must be a world leader or celebrity to have interesting viewpoints and stories. I found the tone of the book to be charming, funny and self-deprecating. I could relate to her stories of family dysfunction because whose family isn't messed up, right? Being approximately the same age as the author, her childhood stories from the 70's and 80's totally cracked me up.

My favorite words in the book are in the final few pages: "I am not and was never going to be the relaxed, organized, manicured career mom, any more than I was going to the shiny, effusive cheerleader or the diligent Gap employee or the virginal good girl or the wise young lady who dates only responsible, emotionally available guys. I am a disorganized, melancholy second-guesser who rhapsodizes a little too loudly over the pleasures of a cold beer at the end of a long day. I am enthusiastic, yes, and passionate, sure, but I'm also fundamentally ambivalent, angst-ridden, and conflicted. I am distracted, overwhelmed, and mostly unprepared for whatever lies ahead."

"You are never fully prepared. You never really arrive. The best you can do is keep painting the walls to suit your new circumstances."

Yes! That is real life. It is a relief to hear someone admit some truth and imperfection. Wait, its not just me? I feel like I'm supposed to be striving to be more, better, "perfect". A clean house, well behaved children, a rewarding career, a well-balanced life. But at some point, we all realize that we just have to be happy despite the chaos and uncertainly. None of us are perfect, we learn through mistakes and experiences. I'm trying to stop wishing for more, better and perfect and just be happy with what is. So, excuse me, I'm going to get off this computer and enjoy my beautiful chaotic life. If you want a fun read, pick this book up. (less)

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Feb 22, 2011 Katherine rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: horrid

An uninteresting memoir about someone's uninteresting life. The "uninteresting life" part would have been fine if she had found some interesting or truly funny way to write about the average things that happened to her. But she didn't. So her parents got divorced. So she has flaws. BIG WHOOP. I kept reading this book hoping that it would have some kind of positive realization, but the maybe four times Havrilesky was positive it felt saccharine and fake. Overall a cliched, repetitive, unnecessary...more

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Feb 20, 2011 Rain rated it 3 of 5 stars

While I adore Heather Havrilesky's TV and movie reviews, and her blog, I have to admit I was a bit disappointed in this. Perhaps I am just having memoir-fatigue, but I don't think I need to read about anyone else's childhood ever again, unless they truly went through something memorable. We all have our stories about childhood; that doesn't mean we should all write them down...

I DID like her thoughts on marriage, and motherhood, and boyfriends, though. Those were the best parts of the book.

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Jun 05, 2012 Corinne rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: gym-books

Havrilesky's prose was great. Sassy, interesting, shocking, funny. I really enjoyed it. She has a lot of potential as a writer, but she did not hit a home run with this book. The structure was confusing and flat. Too often, though engaged by the writing itself, the story left me thinking "so what?" or "who doesn't go through this?" A good memoir doesn't leave you with those questions, because you instead resonate with the character and feel your own life through him/her. Havrilesky didn't do tha...more

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Mar 25, 2012 Josamarie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Witty and snarky, each chapter shows how it really is all the smallest of moments that make us who we are, and that we are never done learning about ourselves. I particularly love her vivid description of her role as surf to a tyrannical two-year old ("We have better things to do, like fall to our knees and genuflect."). I'm not usually big into memoirs, but this sweeps of essays was thoroughly enjoyable!

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Dec 23, 2012 Sulagna rated it 3 of 5 stars

I bought this because I loved Heather's "Ask Polly" column on the Awl. I was hoping for more essays on vulnerability. They were definitely good essays on defense mechanisms, the birth of certain neuroses, and embracing vulnerability. But they all ended so damn quickly. I would've loved some more rumination at the end of each chapter, like when she learned more about her cheerleader friends or about her love for her husband versus the love of a broken heart.

But I love her column, and I think ther...more

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Oct 23, 2011 Megankellie rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: memoir

I am inhaling memoirs in an effort to find someone with my own experience but a little bit older and everything turned out okay. When someone is self-deprecating about the kind professor they married and two children they have, I feel like Gollum, trying to be normal in a coffee shop, but wearing a loincloth and corpse skin. Dramatic.

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Mar 08, 2013 Jennifer rated it 2 of 5 stars

Heather Havrilesky! I'm sorry! I love you and everything you write in Salon/NYT Magazine, but I didn't really like your book, and I really wanted to! I think the issue with this memoir was, nothing seemed to particularly happen in Havrilesky's childhood that was out of the blue or particularly engrossing, and the way that she naturally writes is more cerebral and less action-oriented, which isn't really conducive to a memoir where, to a certain cheap extent, it's all about shock value. This book...more

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Feb 01, 2011 Elisabeth rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011

Part of my liking of this book was the author's memories of growing up in the '70s and '80s, as we are close in age. Part of it was our kindred feelings of wanting to prevent any disasters befalling us. And part of it is she is just damn funny.

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May 10, 2011 Bonnie rated it 4 of 5 stars

This book really spoke to me of my childhood era and brought up a lot of memories for me. I especially enjoyed the last chapter. The book wouldn't have been meaningful beyond its reading to me without the final words.

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Mar 08, 2011 Fran rated it 4 of 5 stars

I was curious to see what this memoir had to offer. Reviews were stating that the author's life was pretty ordinary. While it's true that nothing really extraordinary happens, her writing style held my interest.

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Feb 27, 2011 Benjamin Berman rated it 3 of 5 stars

Four stars for wit, two starts for just not really having an interesting enough life to write a memoir about.

Not nearly as good as her TV reviews on Salon were. Hope she succeeds at Murdoch's Daily

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Dec 24, 2010 Paula Schuck added it

Bringing back memoir as a genre, havrilesky is the enviably funny writer who skewered personalities and pop culture at salon.com. This is the story of her early years and while I enjoyed it for the most part, at times it was overly familiar. Lovely use of metaphor and comical cultural references. As far as memoirs go so far this one is middle of the road. Not too whiny or too maudlin, but it is the ending that is most memorable.

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