Will Love For Crumbs

by Jonna Ivin

Raised by an alcoholic mother and without a father, Jonna learned at a young age to put her needs on the back-burner. After her mother dies of cancer, she goes on a spiritual journey looking for enlightenment and a purpose for her life. Eventually, she ends up as a volunteer in the relief effort following Hurricane Ike. There she meets a man that will forever change her life. In the swamps of Louisiana and the hills of Arkansas, Jonna follows her heart to build a life with an American hero - a 20 year veteran of the Army Special Forces. Only after uprooting her whole life, leaving everything and everyone she knows behind, do the pieces of this fairytale start to unravel. Realizing the man of her dreams is actually the stuff of nightmares; Jonna must once again go within and discover why she is a woman willing to love for crumbs.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Amazon, Ebooks, Biography, Adult, Autobiography

314 pages, Paperback

First published January 7, 2012

About the author

Jonna Ivin is the author of Will Love For Crumbs - A Memoir and the crime thriller 8th Amendment. She is the editor of the Loving For Crumbs - An Anthology of Moving On.

Sister Girl, Jonna's latest humorous coming of age novel loosely based on her life growing up in the 70's was released in April of 2014.


Visit on Facebook at
http://www.facebook.com/jonna.ivin

Reviews

[Misty Baker · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I was in high-school I spent a pretty significant amount of time in the library. Skipping class. (Sorry Mom) I never read while in the library (Lord forbid) instead I people watched. More specifically I watched Ms. Ashmore, our Librarian. Every day, while I sat in the corner trying to concoct some ridiculous plan to get out of history class (which was taught by Satan) she sat, nose in book, Kleenex in hand.

One day, while she was knee deep in snot and splotchy faced I braved the harsh realities of florescent lighting, emerged from my lady cave, and asked her what she was reading (so I could avoid it like the plague. I’m an ugly crier.) She said it was a memoir about a Geisha. I balked. No, really, I balked…out loud…to her face.

Stunned by my action (and complete lack of respect. Yes, I suck.) she told me to sit down.

“Misty, one day, when you are tired of brooding in the corner like some pathetic emo kid whose dog just died (totally deserved that) you are going to realize something. Life is just a series of lessons. Lessons that are taught to us by others.”

Unconvinced I said the first thing that popped into my head. “Memoirs suck. Why would I want to spend my valuable time reading about someone else’s pathetic existence when all I have to do is open my eyes and see a million carbon copies of the same crap walking the halls?” (Yeah, I was a bad-ass! *sigh*)

“Because they are interesting. And one day, when you are finally adult, AND get that chip off your shoulder long enough to let people in, you will understand the importance of them.”

Now, before I go on I’ll admit that I did (immediately after Ms. Ashmore left for lunch and the student aid took over) check out Memoirs of a Geisha. And, to this day it is still one of my favorite books. Unfortunately, I’m still as hard headed as ever and until Jonna Ivin sent me a copy of her novel “Will Love 4 Crumbs” I had NEVER read another memoir.

Ms. Ashmore was right. GD it!

“Raised by an alcoholic mother and without a father, Jonna learned at a young age to put her needs on the back-burner. After her mother dies of cancer, she goes on a spiritual journey looking for enlightenment and a purpose for her life. Eventually, she ends up as a volunteer in the relief effort following Hurricane Ike. There she meets a man who will forever change her life.

In the swamps of Louisiana and the hills of Arkansas, Jonna follows her heart to build a life with an American hero – a 20 year veteran of the Army Special Forces. Only after uprooting her whole life, leaving everything and everyone she knows behind, do the pieces of this fairytale start to unravel. Realizing the man of her dreams is actually the stuff of nightmares; Jonna must once again go within and discover why she is a woman willing to love for crumbs.”

I am not going to say this book was perfect. As a matter of fact it was FAR from it. The beginning was incredibly choppy. (It sounded like it had Asthma.) The format was confusing as all get out. (There were flashbacks and quirky time sequences that just didn’t make sense) and every word that I read (for the first 50 pages or so) I regarded as complete and total bull poopie! BULL POOPIE people!

Then something clicked. I realized that Ivin had something legitimate to say, and regardless of her off kilter way of expressing it, it was important. So I stopped being a total brat and listened.

What I heard was a story about a girl who just wanted to be loved, but didn’t know how.

This is not an uncommon problem. There are hordes of children out there just like Jonna Ivin. They are bi-products of their childhood environments. Have a mother that is an alcoholic? Chances are you are going to have some pretty serious trust issues. Daddy took off and left you and your sis high and dry? Let me introduce you to abandonment 101. This is what “Will Love 4 Crumbs” was about. Living through the issues and overcoming their effect.

Was Jonna’s ride a wild one? Without a doubt and at times I (shamefully) found myself agreeing with her overbearing sister. She chose this life, and as screwed up as it was, (aka her crack addicted, compulsive lying, kleptomaniac boyfriend) she CHOSE it! If she didn’t like it, all she had to do was pack her bags and scoot her tiny tushie out the back door. But it wasn’t that simple. Or at least she didn’t realize it was.

Jonna didn’t realize she was holding HERSELF back from being happy. She thought everyone else was, and until someone (that actually DID care about her) told her to buck up and stop living in her self-inflicted world of self-pity, she didn’t realize she was.

The story (yes, I said “story” - it is written as if you are reading FICTION not NON_FICTION) is a high-octane trip through her struggle to get free. Free from her past. Free from her boyfriend, and free from her own self doubt. And despite it’s incredibly rocky beginnings, it morphed into a rather enjoyable memoir. Who would have ever guessed THOSE words would come out of my mouth (er..fingers.)

Here is to hoping the lovely Ms. Ivan finally has her crap together, AND that the process of writing helped her battle her rather large demons, because if she ever goes back to Chris I might just kill her myself. To make a point. (wow…that came off as much more psychotic than I planned. Oh well.)

So should you throw your wallet at this 314 page look at what desperation will get you? If you like memoirs, then yes. I say go for it. Hell, if I can enjoy it there’s no reason you shouldn’t. For the average Joe (aka Romance readers and Fantasy fanatics) take a pass. This isn’t your piece of pie.

Happy Reading my fellow Kindle-ites and remember: You are always worth much more that YOU perceive you are.

[Kim · Rating 3 out of 5]

I did enjoy the overall story and it was written in a way that I was kept interested, but I had two issues with this memoir. I was initially confused because the author jumps around in time, and it caused me to misunderstand some of her relationships. I started out thinking she didn't like her mother but then her mother is living with her and she's dealing with her death as if their relationship was fine. None of that made sense until closer to the end. I also assumed (yes, we shouldn't assume) that she was married to the man that she was living with when her mother passed away. I was trying to figure out if this man was before or after Chris and at what point she was divorced. I didn't discover until the end that she was just living with him and I didn't feel like I got good closure on why that relationship fell through. The writer may have thought that jumping around would make the book more interesting and maybe explain to us why she put up with Chris (and would "love for crumbs") but it really didn't do that for me. The other issue that I had with this memoir, and I'm afraid this will be an issue with many other e-books in the future, is that there were quite a lot of typographical errors in this. I found that annoying and it would mess up the flow of reading it. It should have been edited better than it was. I think the memoir has potential to be better than it currently is and that a rewrite might be beneficial.

[Kimberly · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decent memoir. An interesting story, especially since I lived on Galveston Island when Hurricane Ike hit. We evacuated and couldn't return for two weeks. When we did get home, we didn't have electricity for a few days, and gas wasn't turned back on for over a week. The Red Cross trucks were a life saver. We really appreciated the volunteers who came down and helped out. My only problem with this memoir was that she kept jumping around in time and it was hard to follow. Other than that, it was well written.

[Nancy Rossman · Rating 4 out of 5]

This quirky little memoir had me laughin' and noddin'all the way through. Loved the set up with chapters that matched a drive somewhere...symbolic I think for Jonna looking for answers, moving and moving thinking a different location could/would help. I've been there girl! Many women have. The self-effacing humor works, the vivid characters, sense of place/time...all good. It is a quick and enjoyable read I would recommend to any woman who has ever felt lost, unappreciated, taken advantage of...you know what I mean.

I'll close with a famous quote from Mae West...."A woman has to love a bad man or two so that she'll appreciate a good one when he comes along."

And with that, I'll just say Amen.

[Jan · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm glad I borrowed it for free on my Kindle. I'm a fan of the memoir but this one was so poorly written and goofy-I simply good not stand it. It lacked true introspection; did not develop any characters. It was just awful.

[Kate · Rating 2 out of 5]

Initially I was intrigued by this story that ultimately is about the consequences of ignoring your intuition. The writer has rough talent and a way with dark humor. Yet the book suffers because it reads like a first draft.

[Shannon · Rating 2 out of 5]

I picked this up a few years ago when it was free on Kindle. The synopsis sounded interesting, and it had a ton of good reviews. I never got around too it, and I probably wouldn't have were it not for the reading challenge I'm working my way through. The prompt was to read a book about a difficult topic, so I thought this would be a perfect fit. This is a tale about emotional abuse, a traumatic childhood, dysfunctional relationships, addiction, her strange relationship with God, and poor decision making.

I had to keep reminding myself that this was a memoir, but it read like a fictional story. Many of the situations are very dramatic, and I just can't relate to drama like that. To quote a like in the book "No one's life is that dramatic" kept popping up in the back of my mind as I read the story Jonna painted as she tells the story of her life. Jonna says this to a group of Red Cross volunteers she is working with in reference to Chris, after hearing about his crazy yet very sad life. Chris and Jonna end up having a whirlwind relationship, and eventually end up together. Jonna learns that Chris is not who he says he is and he's been lying to her about everything. She stays with him because he makes her feel taken care of, which makes you want to shake her and yell at her because she is too old to be this immature and irresponsible. Her sister actually does this at one point and she still doesn't do anything. Many of Jonna's mistakes and poor decisions stem from growing up with an alcoholic mother and no father in the picture. She just wants some one to love her and take care of her like her parents never did. Chris enters her life like a freight train, large and in charge, and gives her the sense of stability and care she was always missing. Yet after she learns of his betrayals and bad behaviors, it takes her a long time to leave even thought she writes about doing it for several chapters. Its like she was addicted to him and his lies. I just can't relate to not learning from my mistakes and being in a position like this. I give Ivin credit for writing her story, it takes guts to put your story out there for people to read and criticize. I wish she had a support system to tell her to get her act together and help her. I hope that she's gotten that since writing this.

I didn't care for the writing style at all. This was written in a disjointed chronology, which I really don't care for in general, but as the author is telling her life story it jumped around and she never closed the story. It just abruptly ends, leaving so many pieces of her life unexplained. Like whatever happened to Adam, he was in her life then he wasn't. What happened with Greg? A memoir usually closes with what the author learned as their life went on or where they ended up in the present. This just ends and you are left almost with a cliffhanger. There are alot of holes that left me scratching my head. As many other reviewers mentioned, this book could have used a good edit. There were so many mistakes, it was sometimes hard to read.

[Sharon Lippincott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jonna Ivin kept me sitting on the edge of my chair more than half the night with her memoir, Will Love for Crumbs. I don’t recall the last memoir I read that had such tension. The first suspense-filled pages incited intense curiosity. Fortunately she soon doubled back and began filling in the blanks. It didn’t take long to return to suspense mode as she headed for Beaumont, Texas with a Red Cross hurricane relief team. It was there that she met Chris, the man of her dreams, or so she devoutly hoped and hardly dared believe.

“I caught his eye as I passed by. It was one of those rare movie moments when one holds a stranger’s look long after it would normally be appropriate. I had no idea who he was or what he was doing there, but my intuition told me that this wasn’t the last time I would see him.” That wasn’t her only intuition about him, and they were all on target. The relationship built through a an ongoing series of climaxes until, well, I don’t want to spoil it for you. Ivin’s blunt honesty and vivid language ensure there is never a dull moment in this fast-paced tale that alternates between laughter and tears.

They say that both reading and solving puzzles are good for your brain. This book covers both bases, interweaving action and reflection. Ivin can’t make sense of her own life until she makes sense of her alcoholic mother’s — the mother who married six times and moved so often that by the time records from their previous school arrived at a new one, Ivin and her sister had often moved yet again. Tense chapters covering her relationship with Chris alternate with flashback scenes with further back story. These flashbacks were triggered by observations along the road on the flight from Arkansas to Oregon she began in the first chapter. As they unfold, she recalls events of her mother’s death and pieces together insights into what led to her mother’s uncontrolled drinking. Readers are left to fit that puzzle together along with Ivin. I’ll admit that at times I was challenged to make sense of it, but, although there are a few loose ends, it did come together in the end.

Students of memoir will find much food for thought in Ivin’s process and structure. Within her two-track approach to the story, she strikes a balance between disclosure and discretion, telling enough to convey the sense of the story while protecting privacy and leaving readers hungry for just a little more detail. For me, the end effect was a broad outline that encouraged me to fill in blanks with my own reflections, resulting in an intensely personal reading experience — a remarkable outcome, given the disparities in our lives. I look forward to future volumes of her work.

This review was originally published at StoryCircleBookReviews:

[Pamela Clark · Rating 3 out of 5]

I just finished reading Jonna Ivin’s latest book Will Love for Crumbs. ...and I am at a loss of which direction I should go. (Once you get to know me this will make you smile, trust me. So please bear with me.) When at a crossroad and faced with a dilemma, I have learned to go with my instincts. First, I would like to say, I liked the book, but then I need to add I didn’t like the book. As a woman, as I am sure with the rest of the gals that have read the book, we were drawn to the title by the fact most of us at one time or another can/could relate to it. Starting out reading and anticipating a connection soon found me on unfamiliar ground. Already drawn into the first few pages, I sat back and readied for a new adventure. But having read enough books in my life, no surprise I found myself in a different place in time in the next chapter, which I would soon have to accept as a repeated characteristic that boarded confusion. For me, the book didn’t start to come together until I was about one-third into it. It was at this place I started to enjoy the book. For sure this is where the author started to convey emotions; and the place the author invites the reader to join.

In all fairness, I admire any person that writes…it’s not an easy task. As for editing, no comment, think I’ll pass on this because I get tired of comments made just to fill in space. Of course, we all have an opinion of how things could and should read better, but for a fact, the best of authors make mistakes. …and their books sell no matter what! Again, let me say I liked the title, but thought it was too big for what little Jonna wrote. For the story, well I enjoyed most of it, but actually skipped a few paragraphs due to the graphic details or the brutally frank and unrefined language. I don’t mind a few strong words for impact, but feel this is unnecessary when in search of a descriptive adjectives. Nothing I like more than a writer that allows me to work my imaginary self. Let me ask this, am I the only one that noticed that the one clear shot as to how any of them looked was Chris. …and am I the only one to ask, what happened to Adam? Where did he go?

This I will say, congratulations on your book Jonna, and I do wish you success. Remember, we each have our own style. …and all we need to do is find our niche.

[Marty Beaudet · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have read memoirs of celebrities and enjoyed many of them. I attribute this to two principle factors: the subject's celebrity has made them of interest to me before I pick up the book; and, two, most of them are ghostwritten by someone with an ear for prose. The first of these makes for good storytelling, the second makes for good writing, in most cases.

I was skeptical when I approached Jonna Ivins's memoir, "Will Love 4 Crumbs." I wondered just how interesting the life of an everywoman could be, given all the competition out there from larger-than-life personalities. I also questioned whether a novice could tell even an interesting story in a fashion compelling enough to sustain my interest. With "Crumbs," Ivins proved my fears unwarranted on both counts. I more than once uttered the phrase — hackneyed, perhaps, but true in this case — that truth is sometimes stranger than fiction.

The book is not a complete biography; instead, it hones in on two of the author's most important relationships: with a lover, and with her mother, whose death the author chronicles in touching — though never maudlin — detail. Ivins's life may be ordinary in many ways, but her honest and witty — sometimes sardonic — delivery make her experiences immediately accessible and universal. I found myself knowing the characters as though they existed in my own life.

I thoroughly enjoyed the book and highly recommend it. I plan to give a few copies as gifts throughout the coming year.

[Jenn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Second part, please. That's what I'd say to Jonna Ivin if she was standing in front of me. I know I wouldn't be able to ask her about what has become of Chris. She won't have an answer if she's anything like me. Out of sight, out of mind. Sort of. I know that you never manage to completely forget about those terrorists in your past. They seem to have a great knack for creeping into your subconscious just when you think you've evicted them once and for all.

Jonna Ivin is not a famous celebrity. She is not a sports athlete. She has never (as far as I know) been on television and had her 15 minutes of fame. Until now. Her 15 minutes of fame is in her memoir. She tells a tale that could be almost any woman in the US, Canada, or any number of foreign countries. She lived through her parents separation, the splitting up of custody of the siblings, an alcoholic mother and a poor choice of a boyfriend. Chris seemed like quite the catch on the outside and had every human being fooled that he came into contact with. He wasn't an abuser as such, but he was a manipulator and an emotional controller.

Two thumbs up to Jonna. She made it and stumbled across some meaningful realizations along her travels.

[Courtney · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book had a lot of potential. Unfortunately, it was a complete mess. No years, just highways (?) and approximate locations, which would have been fine if the book was written chronologically, which it wasn't. I spent half of the book wondering who Adam was and who she snuck away from in the very beginning. I'd assume it was her mother, but at some random point in the book, she mentions how deeply she loves her mother. And there's also the part where she and Adam were moving her mother's things in to their house with them. I felt like pieces were missing. Maybe I wouldn't have felt that way if each "chapter" was written in chronological order. A good story, just hard to follow.. and not to mention all the grammatical errors. The wrong "you're" and "your" was used multiple times, and "would" instead of "world"?? Was there NO editor at all!?

Also, it just kind of ended. What happened to Chris? Did she and Jodi ever speak again? What about Greg? What is she doing now? She took us on this journey, and then left us when she felt like it?

[Tamcat · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was ok. The memoir of Jonna Ivin meeting and falling in love with someone who wasn't who she thought he was was interesting to a point. I didn't like the way the book went back and forth through time. It made the ending feel very confusing and abrupt, which is why I only gave 3 stars.
What I did like about the book was the honesty in which Jonna explains how she got into such a terrible relationship. However, I felt like she was making so many excuses for why she stayed in the relationship as long as she did. She was being honest through the entire situation, except to herself. I think that's what makes this book so good. To read about and understand when someone knows they are making bad decisions, yet continues to stay in their situation out of fear of the unknown. Sometimes the known fear and misery is easier to deal with than the unknown. If anything, it's a great study of that one theme.

[Dierdra McGill · Rating 5 out of 5]

First off Thank you for the free copy of the book in exchange for a review.
Will Love For Crumbs really drew me in from the first pages. It was different then the other memories I have read in the past and that is a good thing because I did not want to put this one down. If I had, had the time I would have read this without putting it down.
You get a glimpse into Jonna's life and her story while she was with a very messed up man. No he never hit her but he did some horrible things to her and already had a messed up life to start with. Maybe I connected with Jonna more because I have been in some messed up relationships in the past, I don't know. do know that I would highly recommend this book tho!

[Jamie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm going to be honest, I'm not sure that I have ever read a memoir before. After reading this I'm thinking they may not be for me. This book was all over the place. I had a hard time keeping track of where I was in time. Then, the book ended. There was no ending, I know it's her life and she is still living it but what was I to get from this book? When it ended I was left with the feeling that I had wasted the time it took me to read the short story of this womans life, that made me sad.

[Joan Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m one of those readers who zeros in on a good book and gets back to it every spare moment to see what happens next. I can say without hesitation that is what happened with Will Love For Crumbs. The author kept me constantly engaged in her thoughts and actions. If you are looking for a memoir that will also make you count your own blessings, this is it. I will definitely recommend to family and friends who don’t mind curse words.

Joan
Author of Broken Pottery

[Terry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quick read. This book hit home for me as she described every man I've ever had a long term relationship with. While it is tempting to blame others, it boils down to why am I willing to settle for bad behavior, or as the title says, love for crumbs.

[Cece Baker · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was absolutly amazing !! Once i picked this book up I did not put it down!! Literally I read it all through the night and finished it early this morning ! Give it a try!!!

[Angie McCullagh · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a rollicking read! Not since The Glass Castle have I found a book where I had to sneak in a few pages every time I passed my Kindle. Nicely done!

[Julia Legian · Rating 3 out of 5]

I admire the author's honesty and found the book an interesting read. It's a bit rough and needs editing but it's not all that bad.

[Kate Helwig · Rating 2 out of 5]

I hate writing bad reviews. This was like reading a bad romance novel. The back and forth of different time periods didn’t work well. The book was not revelatory or redeeming.

[Karla Renee Goforth Abreu · Rating 2 out of 5]

I continued reading this book because I had started it. The further I read, the more frustrating it was. In the beginning, this memoir pulls the reader in by an account of the pain and struggle of the author, Jonna, losing her mother. After that, there is an account of Jonna making one bad or ridiculous choice after another. At times, she casts blame on God for her own flighty stupidity.
The majority of the book concerns a relationship with Chris, a man she picked up while serving in a relief organization, such as the Red Cross, assisting hurricane victims. Apparently, before this, she had several other relationships, always looking for love, never finding what she needs or truly wants. Thus, the title “Will Love for Crumbs.”
During remembrances of various events, the language is coarse, unimaginative, and almost obnoxious, —are there other adjectives besides the fbomb?
The ending is abrupt, with actually no closure.
The flow and mechanics of writing are lacking, so that a smooth reading experience just does not happen. It often seems to be someone trying to tell a story and leaving explanations out. How did Jonna have a truck to get to Arkansas? Where did she go after? How long did this episode of her life last—one year, two? Why does she make idiotic choices? (She should not blame it on her mother’s instability, because, after all, she needs to own herself as a grown-up.)
While clearly one can see that Jonna is extremely emotionally needy and one can have compassion for her because if it, the stupidity if her irresponsible actions are annoying, ti the point that you can find your self saying “really?” Then, the combination of bad writing and absolutely foolish impulsive choices, (even the sister in sending them off to LA) and no closure (will love for crumbs, how did you overcome this or did you?) add up to a less than average memoir.
I like biographical stories. This one is not recommended.

[Brooke · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. While it was a little haphazard at first, jumping around a bit, it settled down and got good. Her 'character' is identifiable. She evoked feelings and drew me in and that my friends is what I need to keep reading. This is worth a read for those that aren't nitpicky about perfect writing (the beginning may turn those off) but if you stick with it, it's worth it. Definitely a good read.

[Ruby · Rating 4 out of 5]

I believe I got this for free as a Kindle deal years ago, and I'm not sure what compelled me to open it last night, but I couldn't stop reading. I loved how open she was about describing the red flags she either ignored or justified and how that ensnared her in this relationship. I feel like I easily could have been her at some points in my life.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Okay

Joanna Ivin's memoir on her life is filled sadness and sometimes a little humor. Fatter reading this book, pause, and be thankful for what you have.

[CLAIR Withers · Rating 3 out of 5]

Will Love For Crumbs

Found this hard to read. But I persevered. It’s amazing what we put ourselves through. Just glad Jonna made it through. X

[Susan Kiel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really great memoir about a woman who falls in love with a sociopathic liar.

[Connie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Woman meets a pathological liar. Seems she is an enabler. It takes a lot to let this go and where will she go?

[Jackie Ensley · Rating 2 out of 5]

Jumps around and I got confused on some of the timeline, her relationships were also irritating

[Darian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Will Love For Crumbs is a memoir, about Jonna’s relationship with what she thought was the man of her dreams, Chris. Jonna, is what I would call a drifter. She floats from here to there, job to job, place to place, much like her alcoholic mother did. Again without a job, nothing tying her down, she joins the Red Cross to help with the hurricane Ike relief. Where she meets Chris. Chris is a man’s man, the kind any woman has dreamed about at some point in her life. He’s a southern boy, with that sweet, southern charm that makes you swoon. At first Jonna has reservations about this mysterious man, but it doesn’t take long before she throws them to the side for what must be, the most amazing man ever.

This was an interesting read for me, yet left me having to mull it over on how I really felt about it. The timeline is a bit jumpy for my taste, with oddly placed flashbacks. While the content of the flashbacks were absolutely necessary to the story, to understanding how Jonna came to making the choices she did – I wished the story had been in chronological order. And I don’t feel it would have lost the flow by doing so.

Portions of this story were very hard for me to get through, emotionally. Having an alcoholic mother that I lost to cancer – when Jonna would flashback to those periods of her life, it surged too many hard memories to the surface for me. But isn’t that what many readers look for in a book, to make you feel?

The budding relationship with Chris really was something you would see in fairytales. Jonna made some poor decisions, decisions she knew weren’t true to her real character and values, but his personality is so strong, you too find yourself thinking, “Shoot girl, go on and love the boy.” But fairytales aren’t real, and when you realize that, they unravel. Chris is nothing like the man she thought he was, she’s burned a lot of bridges by staying with him, and she has to figure out how to pick up the pieces and start over.

I’ve read in some of the reviews for this book, people berating Jonna for the choices she made and the lives she affected by them. And yes, I too agree that some of her decisions made me want to reach inside the book and slap the sense into her. They were immature decisions, something I would not have expected to be made by someone older than myself. But, if you take a step back and really look at the situation. Who hasn’t made bad decisions in their life? Who doesn’t have regrets? No one has the right to judge her for it. And no one has to deal with the consequences of her decisions, except her. And a
book without any ‘drama’, well now, wouldn’t that be just plum boring to read?

The formatting and editing could have used some work. Normally that’s not an area I touch on unless it’s very bad. Which it actually wasn’t. But there are definitely a few formatting issues, and editing issues like random quotation marks in the middle of a sentence (that’s not dialogue), a random exclamation point, things of that nature. Mistakes happen, even from the big boy publishers, but this I would say needs another draft to be ‘finished’. And as I write this, I have a very hard time including it in the review. Because as an Indie author myself, I know many read Indie books looking for errors, to happily report “See, self-published stuff is junk.” This story is not junk, but if you’re looking for errors, they’re in there.

Overall, this was a good read. I quite liked the author’s voice, I could easily see myself saying many of the things she did, and I could connect with her story on many levels. It’s not an easy thing to write and throw your work out there for criticism, and its even harder to writer a memoir – because you really are throwing yourself out there for criticism. I applaud the author for that. And her story is an interesting one, one worth reading, one I think a lot of people can relate to.