This book sucked

[Phoebe]

My friend gave me a copy of it last week (think it comes out in April) and I think Paris Hilton is a better writer. Don't waste your money.

[Bronwen]

Work of Wendy Lee Burden not released until April, 2010. Got my book yesterday,,, to Australia.

I don't think my gene pool is dead. The book on a quarter way through is quite funny and I have no idea how a 4-10 year old got her memory head space so in order. I barely remember my Mum and Dad making us do our maths tables to get out of the holiday caravan at five, a single lolly for all, then off to the beach at Crescent Head. Maybe I should remember more, but nup. and I was never good at math.

I really can see how it started out as a cook book. Today I started reading it at breakfast and had to let it go about tea time. Too many unfamiliar gastronomic references almost made me twirl. Lucky my Vermonter husband and me caught a fine italian lunch at Hamilton. Those familiar may have the buzz through to supper.

What the heck, ain't my Family. Childs perspective, a young adult memory, an older person's memory. And it's quite fun. Me and various others will keep churning away at the magnificent Burden Family, unrelated to the Vanderbilt. May I add that disability is not a Vanderbilt gene. It is within our entire family as well.

Bronwen Field-Ramey in Australia.

[Rochelle]

I confess I was wanting to know more about the Vanderbilts after seeing the Biltmore mansion in North Carolina. However, I thought that Burden was very good at keeping the book going and quite inventive with her material. I agree, I don't remember my own childhood with any of the detail she seems to, but I did have a happy childhood and didn't obsess about the wrongs done to me by adults as she has. I loved the Nazi chauffeur and the chain smoking governess. I looked at Burden's website and still no clue as to exactly who is on the cover!! There are pictures of the Maine house "on line" and she simply did not give it justice. Her attempts at revenge were some of the funniest parts. I simply don't agree with the title of this posting.