Confessions of a Do-Gooder Gone Bad

by Ann K. Howley

Confessions of A Do-Gooder Gone Bad is a wry, humorous coming of age memoir about a well-intentioned “problem child” raised by conservative, evangelical Christian parents in Southern California during the Sixties and Seventies. As she naively stumbles through her youth and young adulthood, one misadventure after another, she also struggles to reconcile her ultra-Christian upbringing with women’s liberation, prejudice, protest and poverty during this turbulent era, eventually gaining a different perspective of faith in a world more complicated, funny, terrifying and wonderful than she expected.

184 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2014

About the author

Ann K. Howley's debut YA novel, The Memory of Cotton, was published by Propertius Press in 2022. She is the author of the award-winning memoir, Confessions of a Do-Gooder Gone Bad and is a contributor to the HerStories Project anthology, So Glad They Told Me: Women Get Real About Motherhood.
She writes for Pittsburgh Parent Magazine and her work was awarded the Silver Award from the Parenting Media Association in 2017 and 2019. She won the 1st Place Prize for Nonfiction in the 2015, 2016 and 2019 Pennwriters Writing Contests. Her articles appear in publications nationwide, including skirt! Magazine, Bicycle Times Magazine, and the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. A popular speaker, she has conducted workshops in cities across the country and hosts weekend writing retreats for aspiring authors.

Reviews

[Gisela Hausmann · Rating 5 out of 5]

Why do we care about autobiographies? Because we want to “feel” the impressions real people, who have lived through the times, have had. This is exactly where Ann Howley’s stories excel: She bring to life: the sixties and her growing up in a conservative family in the midst of “… Peace-loving hippies, druggies and other flaky people (started) hanging out at Venice Beach, giving that town a permanent reputation as a destination for the weird. It was an era of self-empowerment. Black Panthers raised their fists, women burned their bras, anti-war protesters marched and yelled slogans, and a couple of thugs in South Central Los Angeles upped the gang violence ante by forming the notorious Crips gang.”

Young Ann’s interests are far more humble, though, “… even as a youngster, I recognized signs that maybe the world was more muddled and gray than I thought. The Beatles were my first clue.”

The fact that her mother threw away her aunt Kim’s gift, “... the album cover that displayed John, Paul, Ringo and George decked out in their bizarre, psychedelic, hallucinogenic glory…” may have sent her on the path to experiencing the many adventures he did.

Ann’s stories are funny. There are her family’s pets, the “Bunnies, Squishies and Snakes”, Ann roots for the Squishy, a “stupid duck” in the eyes of her mother. In Ann’s eyes the duck too too represents the underdogs and true to the sixties’ philosophies she roots “for the weak, the poor and oppressed, even it was a stupid duck.”

In her book 'Confessions of a Do-Gooder Gone Bad' Ann Howley shares her impressions about TV-shows, camping, Jerry Falwell, Santa Claus, and how she hated Twiggy. I am pretty she was not alone with that, but Ann actually tells us how it felt being a teenager while Twiggy was the ideal beauty of the days. I just could not help but laugh. Even funnier is “A Jesus Freak Meets A Drug Freak”. There are also stories about the landing on the moon and double knit polyester. Very cool is that Ann forms her own opinions. by herself, they are not influenced by social media, she alone digs her way through the confusion of the sixties, her own and her generation’s identity crisis, and shares her memories thereof.

5 stars for Ann's 'Confessions of a Do-Gooder Gone Bad' – it’s funny, real, and heartwarming.

Gisela Hausmann, author & blogger

[Jessyca Garcia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought Confessions of a Do-Gooder Gone Bad by Ann K. Howley was hilarious. Howley tells tales of her upbringing with her deeply religious parents. Then later explains how all her good deeds seem to go bad.
After reading Confessions of a Do-Gooder Gone I believe that Howley’s motto in life should be “No good deed goes unpunished”. Overall Confessions of a Do-Gooder Gone is a pretty quick read. The chapters in the book are divided into funny events that occurred in Howley’s life. My favorite story was the Frisbee incident. The story actually made me spit out my coffee because I could not help but to laugh. I also think that Howley is a very brave person because a loose snake in the house would cause me to burn the house down. I am curious to know where the snake was eventually found. I found all her stories funny and unique. A few I could even relate to myself such as living with strict parents. I was amazed that her parents let her travel to a different country alone at a young age. Of course the world was a little safer back then.
I think Howley has lead a very interesting life. I admire her for having such a good heart and attempting to do good deeds. Her story about what happened at the bus station surprised me. I would never have done that. I enjoyed reading about her life and recommend this book to anyone who has had a good deed backfire on them.
* I reviewed this book for Reader's Favorite

[J.V. Hilliard · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am not a traditional reader of memoirs, but Howley takes you on an honest and passionate ride from cover to cover. Easy read and hard to put down. Lots of life lessons to learn along the way too. Highly recommend

[Jnana Hodson · Rating 4 out of 5]

These candid and often humorous presentations of growing up in a strict fundamentalist family in southern California in the '60s and '70s land on target. Her family may have defined itself as evangelical, but I'll quibble. Still, Howley describes experiences much like my own in Ohio a decade earlier, though we were more mainline Protestant and I had only a sister rather than four siblings. What we get from the outset is a sense of the perceived threat of everything the hippie movement represented – a view that quickly extends to anything beyond the family's embattled circle. Her father, especially, comes off as a one-dimensional patriarch, and I wish for more understanding of him as a person. We do get some strong glimpses into his insensitivity as a husband, but nothing of him as a tragic figure. On the other hand, I expected the author to flee into psychedelic release at the earliest opportunity. It turns out she's too prudent for that, though she does move into the wider world without ever really turning "bad." Oh, sigh. I also anticipated that her religious training might have led her into social activism of some kind, as the word "do-gooder" often conveys. Not so, though she wasn't a "goody two-shoes," either. Somehow, the Mobi edition I was reading was laced with bothersome hyphens in the middle of words. I allow a degree of grammatical and typographical errors in self-published material, but the excess here needs to be flagged. The hyphens turn into a kind of stutter. Howley's memoir cracks through the sugarcoating of sit-coms set in the era. She catches the angst of trying to navigate social circles and make sense of a subculture (to my mind, at least) gone astray. I'm left feeling she has much more to say in this vein, especially in light of her years since childhood and adolescence. I hope she goes for it.

[Cyndi Bloise · Rating 5 out of 5]

Funny and real!

From the very beginning, she draws the reader in with humor and stories that tell the stories of all of our lives in some way. Often, I will read books and lose interest toward the end, but this one kept me going to the last page!

[Lina Hershberger · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you want a book that makes you chuckle, or laugh out loud like I did a couple of times, and makes you feel like you aren't the only person in the world that thinks the way you do, you should enjoy this. Happy reading!

[Ann Howley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had a BLAST writing this book!

[michael farina · Rating 5 out of 5]

This memoir's greatest asset is the range of emotion that the writer brings to the table. It's a funny, touching, and deeply personal look at the early life of a writer who's not afraid to let the world see her as she is.

From beginning to end, Ann Howley refuses to hide behind a mask. She puts her character on display and lets the reader judge her for who she is. The effect by the end is that you come to feel like you've known her for a very long time.

This might be obvious, but I enjoyed the book.

[Nancy LiPetri · Rating 5 out of 5]

Didn't want this fun story to end. Especially entertaining to those of us who grew up in the 60's and 70's, plus anyone of any age will find themselves laughing and relating to the timeless dynamics between child and parents, sister and siblings, coming of age "dork" and herself. Many of the hilarious anecdotes contain life lessons to treasure. As the people Ann meets touch her life, from street people to celebrities, she will touch your heart.

[Lorna Collins · Rating 5 out of 5]

A laugh-out-loud memoir of growing up in a conservative religious household in Southern California at a time when the norm was hippies and rebels. Ann captures the feelings many people share of being out-of-step. I particularly related to being naive and not 'getting' some of the references others understand. This was a delight and highly recommended.

[Amber Griffith · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely loved this memoir. As someone that grew up mostly not relating to my parents and my parents not relating to me, the entire story resonated with me. It was fun to read and brings you back to your own youth with all the emotions that are so well written. I won this book on a good reads giveaway. Thank you!

[Susanhodges · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a great book! It brought back so many memories of the 60's and the trials and tribulations of growing up. Ann has a gift for writing about the many different dilemmas that she gets herself into with such heartfelt description. It is a great read! I thoroughly enjoyed it.

[Nancy Jansen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was very fun for me to read. I can relate to many of the same things, as was born around the same time. Fun to read and reminisce. A very quick, well-written story. Thank you.