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Feb 03, 2011

Cynthia rated it:

This memoir was incredible. I don't need to debate how to rate it.

Bartok hit it out of the ballpark. She and her mom and sister pass through, aspire to, or survive, family life, abusive men, homelessness, classrooms, shelters, museums, concert halls, loving husbands, freedom, religion, myths, reality, etc. not to mention their divergent perceptions of the same. Mostly what the book is about is the three of them trying to stay attached without being destroyed by the mother’s sch More...

6 comments like (9 people liked it)

Jan 13, 2012

Lois rated it:

I read 130 Pages before deciding I'd had enough. The book just seemed to be a little too scattered for me, and not sure who it was really about. Too many minor details, besides being quite depressing, and I just kept feeling like I was reading the same event over and over again, in a way. I get that the whole family is artistic and that it was a terrible waste for her mother to be as she was, but just as the oldest daughter was able to run away and hide from her mother for so many years, I also More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jun 01, 2011

Mary (BookHounds) rated it:

I had never heard of a Memory Palace before and found that the title for this book fits perfectly. A Memory Palace is created by creating an Escher like space in your brain to link memories to pictures. Mira Bartok uses her mentally ill mother's belongings and journals to create a Palace and takes you through her childhood based on the objects of her mother that are found in a storage container. This memoir is probably one of the best I have ever read and I am amazed that the author keeps a s More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Feb 20, 2011

Priscilla rated it:

*Goodreads Giveaway.

PROS:
→ Easy read.
→ Poignant storytelling.
→ Engaging from the get-go.
→ Incredible prose.
→ Every single character in her life had personality and made a significant contribution to the book no matter how minor their role.
→ Audience was shown things, not merely told.

CONS:
→ This is a personal thing but I didn't like how minor ethnic groups were pointed out. For example, "the black woman in a pink coat" More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Mar 21, 2011

Sandy rated it:

Mira's memoir of her mother's mental illness and of how she and her sister endured their battered childhood is a fascinating, compelling read. Mira's tangled, painful youth does not still her ability to feel compassion for her brilliant, gifted and deeply troubled mother. Both women, and sister Rachel as well, are talented, vital personalities brought to vibrant life in this heart-felt memoir. As their history unfolded, revealing the extraordinary and painful complexities and needs of Norma Her More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 06, 2012

Lauriann rated it:

Mira Bartok has dealt with the emotional upheaval of growing up with a schizophrenic mother by writing a haunting memoir, whose words linger with this reader. The author needed to shut her mother completely out of her adult life for her own preservation, and she expressed honestly the pull between guilt that her mother was homeless and self-preservation. One applauds the writer for emerging as a woman of strength. This memoir speaks for the great need for resources and help for the mentally ill More...

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Dec 27, 2011

Linda rated it:

This is another tough book to rate. Ideally, I would give it 3 1/2 stars, but settled for three, since it didn't quite qualify for the fourth star.

It was beautifully written, but that might be its flaw; it was too beautifully written. I felt that Mira Bartok wanted to present her mother in a favorable light and so glossed over the more unpleasant aspects of her mother's illness. I just didn't believe that her mother's behavior was so extreme that the author and her sister both had More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 28, 2011

Deborah rated it:

This was a mixed bag for me. It was extremely well written by a talented author, but despite the fact that it is a memoir of the author's mother's mental illness, I found myself far more drawn to Mira's life. Not to sound cold, but there was a stagnancy and inevitability to the mother's story. I wanted to see how Mira's played out.

That Mira and Rachel's mother, Norma, was seriously mentally ill was not in dispute. At the start of the book she is dying and the daughters have come to s More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Oct 02, 2011

Carla rated it:

Mira Bartok and her sister had it tough, dealing with a mentally ill mother. When she became so threatening that the two girls, by then grown, actually feared for their safety, they both made the hard decision to change their names and not tell their mother where they lived. The knowledge that her mother was homeless haunted Mira, and this memoir reads like a running commentary of the daily guilt that Mira felt over her break with her mother. In creating her memory palace - a place where she can More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 01, 2011

Uwe rated it:

This book really hit home: Artist and children's author Bartok describes a life dominated by her schizophrenic mother. After experiencing decades of craziness and suicide attempts, they finally cut off all ties with their homeless mother. Once the mother faces a terminal illness, the daughters try to connect with her again and heal some of the wounds. An amazing book that deserves a larger readership.

A few memorable quotes:

- Beautiful is what we see. More beautiful is what w More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 29, 2011

Sarah rated it:

In reviews this book was likened to The Glass Castle and having loved that book I was super excited to read this one. Let me tell you though that this book is no Glass Castle. In fact I think it was trying way too hard to be The Glass Castle and in doing so became a bit of a mess. Even the title is a bit too mimicy (yes I know that is not a word) for my liking. However, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery so I'm guessing Jeanette Walls must be feeling pretty flattered right about now. More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Sep 28, 2011

Nada rated it:

The Memory Palace is a memoir which tells of Mira Bartok's life growing up and living with a mother who suffered from schizophrenia . The book begins at the end as Mira rediscovers her mother who is nearing the end of her life. It then proceeds to describe the process of their life in snapshots as rooms in Mira's "memory palace."

The memory palace is a tool that associates our memories with a concrete place and object. Your palace has rooms, and each room has a significant o More...

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Sep 25, 2011

Sabrina rated it:

This complex memoir touches on the difficult and little understood subject of schizopheria. It is the story of how Mira and her sister Natalia leave their homeless and schizophrenic mother Norma after years of abuse and frustrations. They even go so far as to change their names and have post office box addresses in an effort to totally detach themselves from their ill mother.

After 17 years of estrangement and other personal traumas (Mira suffers a brain injury), the story focuses o More...

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Sep 19, 2011

Rhonda rated it:

Adult sisters deal with their mother's mental illness. They have even changed their names, moved without leaving forwarded addresses, etc.

The memory palace refers to a 'place' author has built in her mind to remember and categorize the events of growing up with her mentally ill mother.

Favorite Quotes:

"Beautiful is what we see. More beautiful is what we understand. Most beautiful is what we do not comprehend." P 32

"Our brains a More...

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Sep 17, 2011

Patti rated it:

For such a potentially moving subject, I felt oddly disconnected from the author's story. There is never really any deep thought or feeling, it's mostly Mother did this and we did that in response and a lot of guilt expressed. I also don't like when authors ask questions constantly. For instance," ...."Should I turn back, should I go home? Will she ever be okay?""What is on the other side of the golden wall?" "What do the pictures mean?". "Can a paintin More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 16, 2011

Sharon rated it:

Hmmm.

There are a lot of overwhelmingly positive reactions to this book, and I hesitate a little to be among its detractors. I'll let those other reviewers focus on the positives and the plot summary, and explain why I didn't love it:
It's not well written. It jumps all over the place, not in a jumble of memory but in a disjointed way. The author uses a constant "I wonder what my mother would be doing right now. Would it be A? Or would it be B? Or would it be the violent optio More...

3 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 30, 2011

Justine rated it:

This was a challenging book for me. I liked the idea of a memory palace and believe I had read a review that compared this to Jeannette Wall's "The Glass Castle". I was expecting something similar with this book.

It was an interesting read but I felt detached from Mira (which may have been the point) and her relationship with her mother. This may have been Mira's coping mechanism but so much of the book centered on the act of running away from her mother and her mother's More...

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Aug 27, 2011

Monica rated it:

I loved this book. Bartok is a talented writer and artist, and her use of the "memory palace" device worked very well for this story. All of her characters are richly drawn, people with whom we can sympathize even when they're behaving badly toward one another.

I entered into this book from a couple of different perspectives: as a writer, as a scholar of traumatic brain injury and trauma studies, and as the child of a man who suffers from schizophrenia. While our childhood w More...

1 comment like

Aug 25, 2011

Melissa rated it:

This book was OK. I get what Mira was trying to do, and she did do it. The rooms were well thought out and did leave many impressions and were a fine introduction to the memories she shared with us, but it seemed that we spent a lot of time wandering those rooms in a meaningless way, especially for the times when Mira had left home and country with only cursory, or none at all, returns to the original point/room.
What she didn't do was transport me. The nearly constant (and therefore i More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 19, 2011

Mai rated it:

I thought this book was fantastic. I can definitely relate to it, because I grew up in a very dysfunctional family. I would also dread hearing the phone ringing late at night, because it meant that I would be sitting in an emergency room with my mom. Still til this day, I panick when I hear the phone ring late at night, and it's been nearly 3 years since she past away.

My mother knew I had a weak spot when it came to her and there wasn't anything I wouldn't do for her. I sustaine More...

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Jul 07, 2011

Muriel rated it:

Have you ever struggled to remember something from long ago only to find the memory as elusive and changeable as a ribbon of smoke? Mira Bartók's memoir, The Memory Palace, cites as inspiration the idea that one can build a palace in one's mind where each memory is represented by a piece of art. There it will be safe, preserved, and ready to be remembered anytime the creator desires. The format of the book follows this prescription and is presented in vignettes accompanied by the author's own i More...

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Jul 04, 2011

Aban (Aby) rated it:

The Memory Palace is the memoir of a woman (an artist and writer) who, along with her sister, was raised by a loving but schizophrenic mother. The sisters were forced to remove themselves from their mother in order to escape the emotional and physical harm she could have inflicted on them and also to pursue their artistic and literary careers. The author, although she was physically absent from her mother, was always emotionally and mentally connected with her and, as readers, we experience her More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 22, 2011

Terry rated it:

I might go back and make this four stars instead of three. For some reason I had it in my head that this book did not get especially good reviews, or, there were a few reviewers out there that really didn't like it, somehow--I don't know why I felt sort of prejudiced against it before I even read it. I really liked this book a lot. I think it's beautifully organized. It's beautifully written. The fact that Bartok experiences a brain injury that causes her to feel empathy with the mentally ill mo More...

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Jun 05, 2011

Joy rated it:

I'm just really in the mood to read memoirs these days. This one was about Mira (the author), her sister, and their mentally ill mother. Norma was a very bright and beautiful classical piana protege who was struck with schizophrenia at the age of 19. She had a life-time love for her daughters, but as time went on, the mother talked less about Chopin and more about Nazis and her fear her daughters would be kidnapped, murdered, or raped. When they left for college, the mother's harrassment rea More...

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May 29, 2011

Debbie (Readerbuzz) rated it:

Mira Bartok’s real name is not Mira Bartok. Nor does her sister Natalia go by her real name. Both women changed their names so their mother could not track them down.
Both women had to start new lives with new names and completely cut off contact with their mother in order to survive.

Bartok’s mother, Norma Herr, is the center of this memoir. Herr was a magnificent pianist who got blindsided by schizophrenia when she was in her early twenties. By then, she had married and had two More...

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May 28, 2011

Melissa rated it:

This book was touching, as the author struggles not only with life with a schizophrenic mother, but also with a brain injury that leaves her sometimes grappling for memories of her childhood. Mira Bartok's calming narrative gives way to the reader's own thoughtful remembrances of childhood and relationships. It is refreshing to get the perspective of someone who grew up and dealt with a mentally ill person, as the reader can get a sense of compassion for those with such illnesses. As Bartok w More...

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Mar 22, 2011

Brenda rated it:

Having spent time on the streets with the homeless I had a deeper sense of understanding what Mira Bartok was looking at when she viewed her mother’s life on the street. However, I am NOT the daughter of a homeless woman, nor the daughter of a schizophrenic. Mira Bartok is both of these as well as the victim of a traumatic brain injury that has lingering effects on both motor skill and long term memory.

The Memory Palace is a memoir that depicts Mira’s journey back to her mother after a More...

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Mar 21, 2011

Tempe rated it:

As far as memoirs go, I actually enjoyed Mira Bartok's beautifully poignant life story. The youngest daughter of a schizophrenic mother and a father who deserted them, Bartok struggles with the extreme embarrassment of having a mother who was once a prodigy concert pianist but who is now mentally ill. The story of her childhood is only a small part of surviving, as once into adulthood she must battle her mother stalking her workplaces, calling dozens of times a day, and threats of suicide if sh More...

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Mar 08, 2011

Doreen rated it:

I rarely have given a book 5 stars but I am doing so with this one for the book and for the experience of reading it. This past year I have been paying more attention to the quality of the writing--things like structure, use of language story development etc. Some of my reviews have referred to my frustrations with poor editing, bad writing and perhaps rushing a book into publication before it is ready. The Memory Palace reads like a work that has given attention to detail and form. The author i More...

3 comments like (2 people liked it)

Feb 28, 2011

Louise rated it:

Mira and her sister Natalia, grow up under the veil of their mother’s madness. Norma was a schizophrenic often given to crazy outbursts, physical attacks on the girls, strings of verbal vulgarity, and generally making a nuisance of herself. Norma showed up at their workplaces, wrote them crazy letters, purchased a gun, cut Mira’s throat with a broken bottle and made life hell for these two girls.

Finally, both girls were forced to move away and not tell Norma where they were, it was More...

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