Lauren's review

Without a Map: A Memoir
by Meredith Hall

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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/325484.Without_a_Map_A_Memoir?utm_medium=api&amp;utm_source=blog_review" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="Without a Map: A Memoir" border="0" src="http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1173763352m/325484.jpg" /></a> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/325484.Without_a_Map_A_Memoir?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">Without a Map: A Memoir</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/186951.Meredith_Hall">Meredith Hall</a><br/><br/>
  <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3789007?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review"><h3>My review</h3></a>
  rating: 5 of 5 stars<br/>Disclaimer: I work at Beacon Press.
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<br/>BUT, this was one of those books that I couldn't put down, when I see an excerpt in a magazine or even at work I just get drawn in immediately. I'll find myself rereading passages for the eighth time just because I happen to read a full sentence. Meredith Hall is a phenomenal writer, she writes with a passion fitting to this story. The story is her own, she got pregnant at age 16 and was ostracized from her community--her mother kicked her out of her house, her father put her up in his house where he and his wife barely spent time, told her not to go by a window or outside, or even go downstairs for dinner if they had friends over. After the nine months she spent with her growing fetus as her only companion, she doesn't even have the opportunity to see the baby before it is given up for adoption. She tells of her life before and after the birth of her child.
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<br/>Although the story is tragic and very much her own, this book really made some things hit home for me, like how much women of my generation owe to the generations before us. I know this still happens, but not like it used to, and somehow it was easy to see how a community like Meredith's could have done this to any of the children that lived in it, and it was also easy to see how that community was similar to most white, middle-class, suburban families in 1965. I guess the ability to generalize this experience made the book so chilling to me.
  <br/><br/><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/227527?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">View all my reviews.</a>

Lauren's review
rating:

bookshelves: all-timefavorites, beaconbooks
recommended for: Everyone, especially women
status: Read in October, 2006 — I have a copy to sell/swap

Disclaimer: I work at Beacon Press.

BUT, this was one of those books that I couldn't put down, when I see an excerpt in a magazine or even at work I just get drawn in immediately. I'll find myself rereading passages for the eighth time just because I happen to read a full sentence. Meredith Hall is a phenomenal writer, she writes with a passion fitting to this story. The story is her own, she got pregnant at age 16 and was ostracized from her community--her mother kicked her out of her house, her father put her up in his house where he and his wife barely spent time, told her not to go by a window or outside, or even go downstairs for dinner if they had friends over. After the nine months she spent with her growing fetus as her only companion, she doesn't even have the opportunity to see the baby before it is given up for adoption. She tells of her life before and after the birth of her child.

Although the story is tragic and very much her own, this book really made some things h...more

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