What do you think?
Rate this book
Mistakes to Run With
A devastatingly frank memoir that tears open the past to examine how circumstances—and the choices we make—dictate the people we become.
Mistakes to Run With chronicles the turbulent life of Yasuko Thanh, from early childhood in the closest thing Victoria, BC, has to a slum to teen years as a sex worker and, finally, to her emergence as an award-winning author. As a child, Thanh embraced evangelical religion, only to rebel against it and her equally rigid parents, cutting herself, smoking, and shoplifting. At fifteen, the honour-roll runaway develops a taste for drugs and alcohol. After a stint in jail at sixteen, feeling utterly abandoned by her family, school, and society, Thanh meets the man who would become her pimp and falls in love.
The next chapter of her life takes Thanh to the streets of Vancouver, where she endures beatings, arrests, crack cocaine, and an unwanted pregnancy. The act of writing ultimately becomes a solace from her suffering. Leaving the sex trade, but refusing to settle on any one thing, Thanh forges a new life for herself, from dealing drugs in four languages to motherhood and a complicated marriage, and emerges as a successful writer.
But even as publication and awards bolster her, she remains haunted by her past.
Mistakes to Run With chronicles the turbulent life of Yasuko Thanh, from early childhood in the closest thing Victoria, BC, has to a slum to teen years as a sex worker and, finally, to her emergence as an award-winning author. As a child, Thanh embraced evangelical religion, only to rebel against it and her equally rigid parents, cutting herself, smoking, and shoplifting. At fifteen, the honour-roll runaway develops a taste for drugs and alcohol. After a stint in jail at sixteen, feeling utterly abandoned by her family, school, and society, Thanh meets the man who would become her pimp and falls in love.
The next chapter of her life takes Thanh to the streets of Vancouver, where she endures beatings, arrests, crack cocaine, and an unwanted pregnancy. The act of writing ultimately becomes a solace from her suffering. Leaving the sex trade, but refusing to settle on any one thing, Thanh forges a new life for herself, from dealing drugs in four languages to motherhood and a complicated marriage, and emerges as a successful writer.
But even as publication and awards bolster her, she remains haunted by her past.
262 pages, Paperback
First published April 2, 2019
28 people are currently reading
1265 people want to read
About the author
Yasuko Thanh
6 books66 followersYasuko Thanh’s work has appeared in numerous publications, including Prairie Fire, Descant, PRISM international, and Vancouver Review. The title story, "Floating Like the Dead," won the prestigious Writers' Trust of Canada/McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize in 2009. She was a finalist for the Future Generations Millennium Prize, the Hudson Prize, and the David Adams Richards Prize, which recognizes unpublished manuscripts. She recently received her MFA from the University of Victoria. She has lived in Mexico, Germany, and Latin America, and now lives in Victoria.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 117 reviews
April 24, 2019
At the age of seventeen I was convinced of the righteousness of my behaviour, which showed what a person could do when not intimidated. I ate lobster, I drove a Camaro. I wasn't a victim. We smiled from the curb at the men who drove around the block, waved, beckoned with our index fingers, manufacturing a sweetness for even the circle jerks who ogled our flesh through their car windows but never stopped to take us out. This was part of the job, smiling while covering up our fear.
Mistakes to Run With is not just a gritty tell-all memoir about a former teenage sex worker's travels through the eighteen levels of Buddhist Hell (for which the chapters are named), but since Yasuko Thanh is a celebrated author of fiction, she brings a novelist's sensibility to shaping her story with insight and wisdom. I think back now to when I read her prize-winning Mysterious Fragrance of the Yellow Mountains and I feel rather small for having come on here to report whether or not I “liked” it; it's so very easy to forget that these authors we casually evaluate are real people who sweat and labour over their efforts. Nonetheless, I'll follow through with the expected form and report that this was an incredible read – for its art as much as for its narrative.
Many children grow up unloved, but they don't go to the extremes I did. Maybe this is a story about how borderline personality disorder – a diagnosis I received two years ago – develops in a child. Or maybe it's about a good girl who makes bad choices. Or maybe it's about the power we have to rationalize our worst behaviours. I'm still trying to understand whether it was something as inborn as the colour of my eyes that made me trade a life at home for the streets. Or an obsessive need for approval generated by an inability to impress my parents. Whatever it was, I ran away from home at the age of fifteen armed with misguided convictions that allowed me to justify my recklessness, impulsivity, and promiscuity to myself. I was motivated to stay on the streets as long as I did by the firm belief that love involved self-sacrifice, that it constituted a form of noble suffering. But no one story can paint the whole picture. Love had to be earned, and you had to pay dearly to get it. That's what my life so far had taught me.
Born to a Vietnamese father and a German mother, Thanh was raised in a low income neighbourhood of Victoria, B.C. When her brother came along five years later, Thanh lost not only her room to him (she was now relegated to a fold out chair in the living room), but also lost whatever attention and affection she might have had before. Despite being a top student and winner of academic competitions, Thanh received no praise from parents who took her accomplishments as merely expected, and when she eventually ran away at fifteen, her parents informed Social Services that they didn't want her back in the home in case she negatively impacted her brother. On her own, Thanh eventually made her way to Vancouver and was delighted to join a stable of prostitutes under the care of a suave pimp named Avery, and she spend the next several years trying to prove her worth to him by degrading and debasing herself, all while believing that she was in control of everything and no kind of victim. She turned her nose up at the “crack hos” around her (while thinking of herself as merely a sex worker who enjoyed smoking crack), when she eventually had children, Thanh wanted men to think that she was something more than just another one of the sad stay-at-home Moms she hung out with, and when she was later diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, Thanh resisted being put on antidepressants because she had always thought of herself as a step above those “on meds”. It was this kind of awareness of Thanh's self-protection measures – the low self-esteem urging her to feel even slightly superior to those around her – that crafts her disturbing story into one it doesn't feel voyeuristic to witness.
On my office wall was what I called my memory box. Wooden with a glass front, it held things from my childhood. Among them was a bookmark I once drew of Alice in Wonderland where she cried so hard that everyone floated away on her tears. Carried off by her sadness, washed away by her pain. My writing would do this. Wash away my pain. Vindication. I write to be free. The words will free me. Then it would all have been worth it. All? What all? The streets, Avery? Yes, I'd show them. A child's threat: “Then they'll be sorry.” For years in my secret heart I'd been waiting for discovery. It felt like reaching in the dark – for an outstretched hand that would touch me, know me.
And through it all, Thanh wrote as though it would save her life. In the later part of the book – as Thanh describes what she was going through domestically and psychologically as she studied creative writing and began to experience professional success – it was astonishing to learn how her ghosts and demons both urged her on and held her back. Not everyone needs to write a memoir, and not everyone who does can do it well, but Thanh succeeds here on every level and I wish her much success going forward.
September 18, 2019
I don't often review books, but I have to say that I thoroughly disliked this memoir.
The author's journey from an academic and athletic wunderkind, to a "teenage crack ho" (her words, not mine) within a couple of years, and coming out on the other end as an accomplished author, loving mother, and resilient woman was hardly the harrowing tale it's being marketed as. It didn't come across as brave, or tragic, or devastating, or inspirational. To me, it read as self righteous, privileged, and over-the-top rebellious.
I hate that she justified her own self-destruction and adolescent defiance under the guise of a personal pursuit of freedom and independence, or that she made the choices she made and became a prostitute at 15 because, from her point of view, love is earned and not freely given. Regardless of the reasons for those choices, they were still *her* choices. She wasn't forced into the situation and always had the option to go home, which she did periodically. To say that she *endured* beatings, arrests, crack cocaine, and an unwanted pregnancy and that she *suffered greatly* is a stretch, as SHE. CHOSE. THAT. LIFE. She also had an out the entire time, unlike so many sex workers who have no choice at all, or the luxury of an exit route. If I'm reading a survival story of this nature, I'd rather applaud a woman that fought her way up and out of circumstances beyond her control, not give praise to a girl who thought she was unworthy of love because her dad wouldn't pay for her gymnastics lessons.
Is it just me or does Suko consider herself better than her sex worker colleagues? Her descriptions of the other woman in the sex trade came across as condescending in my opinion. The other working girls were drug addicts, alcoholics, broken, used-up, etc. while Suko was spending her free time reading Tony Morrison and writing four hours a day. This is a tad bit pretentious and only adds to my outrage that Suko was pursuing the working girl life because she simply wanted to prove a point. "Look at how reckless I can be without loosing my mind in the process! I don't need anybody!" Good for you I guess? You sure showed them?
I was also mildly annoyed with her descriptions of her childhood as an overachieving, academically accomplished student who also did drugs in the bathroom and was put on academic probation for never attending class. It seems highly unlikely that she could personify both student types at once, although I'm basing that assumption purely on my own experiences with the different types of girls I went to school with in Canada. So either the author is completely unreliable or her star pupil status was fabricated to make her fall into delinquency more significant. Fine. But please stop blaming your parents for your choices because they didn't praise you enough for your accomplishments. I'm a mixed-raced woman too - my father is Chinese and my mother was caucasian - and just like Suko and so many other children with Asian parents, my accomplishments were expected and not overly praised. It's not a big deal. You'll survive.
I will say that the author's inherent loneliness and search for approval/acceptance were adamant throughout her story, particularly when she recaps her emotionally abusive relationships with men. Thanh shows that she has gained a great deal of insight and wisdom in the aftermath of those experiences, and there are a few awful situations depicted in this book where the reader can feel sympathetic. Her borderline personality disorder also plays a large role in this story, but we don't actually learn how she's come to terms with this diagnosis or how much of that disorder affected her most questionable decisions (like entering the sex trade at 15 or smoking crack with her her ex-lover/pimp because it made her feel alive).
I won't lie, I was drawn to this book because reading a true account of teenage prostitution and a turbulent life on the streets of Vancouver sounded like an interesting read and conversation piece for my book club. Will reading this book give you a gritty retelling of life on the streets? Yes. But will it also come a across like a petulant, unreliable narrator telling a shocking story because why not? You bet. Read at your own discretion.
The author's journey from an academic and athletic wunderkind, to a "teenage crack ho" (her words, not mine) within a couple of years, and coming out on the other end as an accomplished author, loving mother, and resilient woman was hardly the harrowing tale it's being marketed as. It didn't come across as brave, or tragic, or devastating, or inspirational. To me, it read as self righteous, privileged, and over-the-top rebellious.
I hate that she justified her own self-destruction and adolescent defiance under the guise of a personal pursuit of freedom and independence, or that she made the choices she made and became a prostitute at 15 because, from her point of view, love is earned and not freely given. Regardless of the reasons for those choices, they were still *her* choices. She wasn't forced into the situation and always had the option to go home, which she did periodically. To say that she *endured* beatings, arrests, crack cocaine, and an unwanted pregnancy and that she *suffered greatly* is a stretch, as SHE. CHOSE. THAT. LIFE. She also had an out the entire time, unlike so many sex workers who have no choice at all, or the luxury of an exit route. If I'm reading a survival story of this nature, I'd rather applaud a woman that fought her way up and out of circumstances beyond her control, not give praise to a girl who thought she was unworthy of love because her dad wouldn't pay for her gymnastics lessons.
Is it just me or does Suko consider herself better than her sex worker colleagues? Her descriptions of the other woman in the sex trade came across as condescending in my opinion. The other working girls were drug addicts, alcoholics, broken, used-up, etc. while Suko was spending her free time reading Tony Morrison and writing four hours a day. This is a tad bit pretentious and only adds to my outrage that Suko was pursuing the working girl life because she simply wanted to prove a point. "Look at how reckless I can be without loosing my mind in the process! I don't need anybody!" Good for you I guess? You sure showed them?
I was also mildly annoyed with her descriptions of her childhood as an overachieving, academically accomplished student who also did drugs in the bathroom and was put on academic probation for never attending class. It seems highly unlikely that she could personify both student types at once, although I'm basing that assumption purely on my own experiences with the different types of girls I went to school with in Canada. So either the author is completely unreliable or her star pupil status was fabricated to make her fall into delinquency more significant. Fine. But please stop blaming your parents for your choices because they didn't praise you enough for your accomplishments. I'm a mixed-raced woman too - my father is Chinese and my mother was caucasian - and just like Suko and so many other children with Asian parents, my accomplishments were expected and not overly praised. It's not a big deal. You'll survive.
I will say that the author's inherent loneliness and search for approval/acceptance were adamant throughout her story, particularly when she recaps her emotionally abusive relationships with men. Thanh shows that she has gained a great deal of insight and wisdom in the aftermath of those experiences, and there are a few awful situations depicted in this book where the reader can feel sympathetic. Her borderline personality disorder also plays a large role in this story, but we don't actually learn how she's come to terms with this diagnosis or how much of that disorder affected her most questionable decisions (like entering the sex trade at 15 or smoking crack with her her ex-lover/pimp because it made her feel alive).
I won't lie, I was drawn to this book because reading a true account of teenage prostitution and a turbulent life on the streets of Vancouver sounded like an interesting read and conversation piece for my book club. Will reading this book give you a gritty retelling of life on the streets? Yes. But will it also come a across like a petulant, unreliable narrator telling a shocking story because why not? You bet. Read at your own discretion.
May 13, 2020
I hate to use the word "harrowing" and I feel like it could fit with Yasuko's account of her life, but I feel like it's not the right word. The definition of harrowing is acutely distressing and Mistakes to Run with is completely distressing; but at the same time, it's kind of like, there's this sense that.. she chose all of this. Which, for the reader, makes it feel like.. umm, okay.. so what... I see your story... annnnd?.. What's the purpose here, Ms. Thanh?
Yasuko Thanh is no doubt a very smart and capable woman, but no one put her out there in these streets. She put herself out in these streets chasing "something" down - which is a common situation among young girls and women, after all - everybody's looking for something.
Through my lens, reading her stories, it seems like only white folks get to capitalize on shit like this and books of this nature. It's distressing really, to watch someone chasing something down that they're not sure of. What's the purpose of this book to the reader? Reading about the author going to work each day, doing a job that she chose, even if your work is sex work, with the stresses of your work, there's stress at every job, knowing that you know it's dangerous and that you're not being forced to do it. Technically, you could leave anytime you want and have the supports of a family who would like you to do better. You just don't want that. It's distressing to watch someone chase down mistakes and a life/lifestyle that they're not even sure they want. It's distressing watching someone participate in a style of life, that they themselves have no purpose for or are even actually, really into. It's secondary stress.
It's crazy because I read this book twice - I read it two weeks ago and had no fucking idea what I had read after I read it. At the end of the first read, I was like - WHAT!? What was the purpose of her doing any of this? Doing crazy shit for crazy shit's sake? I was also saying to myself: No girl, maybe you misread some this... Of course, there are other underlying issues at play like her OCD and seemingly addictive personality, etc... but it's not a book about that, which is also weird. Those situations just seemed like additional circumstances of the stories she's telling. I didn't understand the point at first reading. I'd be lying if I said that I fully comprehend what was happening here at second reading, outside of the fact that at around 45 years of age she finally understood the need for independence, which was given only a blip of acknowledgment in the last chapter.
You know, it's interesting because her memoir brought me back to some of the behavioural issues existing in some of the girls I went to high school with. Maybe I'm being judgmental, but it really just played out like okay, here's this crazy story, for no reason. It felt like privilege at play. I think that it goes without saying that many other women and people of colour and teenagers of colour don't have the luxury of running away and leaving their families behind to pursue their own nonsensical interests. Many women forced to participate in the sex trade don't have the luxury of a choice and we can blame the Canadian government for that because they should really just legalize and regulate sex work so bitches can have security. Like, the fuck! It's time.
All things considered, this memoir reeked of privilege. Too many people are just too busy fighting to get half of what people like Yasuko get for free; freedom, the ability to travel around to various locations, the freedom to not have a work history and somehow inherit a bread and breakfast from dead rich relatives. This may be fucked up to say; but I believe it to be the truth and Yasuko even acknowledges this sentiment in the first chapter of the book where she talks about her black/native co-worker, working the track who would only make a FRACTION of what Yasuko would make being out there for like an hour. My viewpoint informs my reading and as a black female reader I couldn't ignore the fact that this book wasn't sharing anything with me, it was just telling me madness. Interesting, slightly entertaining madness, but madness nonetheless. She ain't talk about how she gave back to her communities; she ain't talk about how she struggled to maintain sobriety or that that was even really a thought to her. Not saying that these missing pieces make the book worthless, it's just that for consumption and reading purposes, it makes the book limited and makes its possibility for growth or future reference, stunted.
After reading this book twice it's harrowing, the circumstances that she described around her sex work and drug use, but there's no higher point. It's all just a story for story's sake and honestly, you can take it or leave it. I could see it as a movie tho.
Yasuko Thanh is no doubt a very smart and capable woman, but no one put her out there in these streets. She put herself out in these streets chasing "something" down - which is a common situation among young girls and women, after all - everybody's looking for something.
Through my lens, reading her stories, it seems like only white folks get to capitalize on shit like this and books of this nature. It's distressing really, to watch someone chasing something down that they're not sure of. What's the purpose of this book to the reader? Reading about the author going to work each day, doing a job that she chose, even if your work is sex work, with the stresses of your work, there's stress at every job, knowing that you know it's dangerous and that you're not being forced to do it. Technically, you could leave anytime you want and have the supports of a family who would like you to do better. You just don't want that. It's distressing to watch someone chase down mistakes and a life/lifestyle that they're not even sure they want. It's distressing watching someone participate in a style of life, that they themselves have no purpose for or are even actually, really into. It's secondary stress.
It's crazy because I read this book twice - I read it two weeks ago and had no fucking idea what I had read after I read it. At the end of the first read, I was like - WHAT!? What was the purpose of her doing any of this? Doing crazy shit for crazy shit's sake? I was also saying to myself: No girl, maybe you misread some this... Of course, there are other underlying issues at play like her OCD and seemingly addictive personality, etc... but it's not a book about that, which is also weird. Those situations just seemed like additional circumstances of the stories she's telling. I didn't understand the point at first reading. I'd be lying if I said that I fully comprehend what was happening here at second reading, outside of the fact that at around 45 years of age she finally understood the need for independence, which was given only a blip of acknowledgment in the last chapter.
You know, it's interesting because her memoir brought me back to some of the behavioural issues existing in some of the girls I went to high school with. Maybe I'm being judgmental, but it really just played out like okay, here's this crazy story, for no reason. It felt like privilege at play. I think that it goes without saying that many other women and people of colour and teenagers of colour don't have the luxury of running away and leaving their families behind to pursue their own nonsensical interests. Many women forced to participate in the sex trade don't have the luxury of a choice and we can blame the Canadian government for that because they should really just legalize and regulate sex work so bitches can have security. Like, the fuck! It's time.
All things considered, this memoir reeked of privilege. Too many people are just too busy fighting to get half of what people like Yasuko get for free; freedom, the ability to travel around to various locations, the freedom to not have a work history and somehow inherit a bread and breakfast from dead rich relatives. This may be fucked up to say; but I believe it to be the truth and Yasuko even acknowledges this sentiment in the first chapter of the book where she talks about her black/native co-worker, working the track who would only make a FRACTION of what Yasuko would make being out there for like an hour. My viewpoint informs my reading and as a black female reader I couldn't ignore the fact that this book wasn't sharing anything with me, it was just telling me madness. Interesting, slightly entertaining madness, but madness nonetheless. She ain't talk about how she gave back to her communities; she ain't talk about how she struggled to maintain sobriety or that that was even really a thought to her. Not saying that these missing pieces make the book worthless, it's just that for consumption and reading purposes, it makes the book limited and makes its possibility for growth or future reference, stunted.
After reading this book twice it's harrowing, the circumstances that she described around her sex work and drug use, but there's no higher point. It's all just a story for story's sake and honestly, you can take it or leave it. I could see it as a movie tho.
February 1, 2022
A lyrical and well-written memoir that covers disturbing and uncomfortable topics.
Thanh discloses early in her memoir that she had (only recently at that point) been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. In the decades before that she had an astonishing capacity to make poor decisions—and that is what I related to. We all make mistakes, but we don't all reach a point in our lives where we look back and marvel at how self-destructive / self-punishing / poorly-informed / deluded / immature we actually were.
Based on some of the reviews here, I didn't expect this book to be so strangely beautiful and insightful. Thanh gives the reader more than enough background to sympathize, but also leaves us to wonder about all those poor choices. It's not neat and tidy but there it is. But poor choices and drug use have a certain inertia, and unless someone gets out of the death spiral it can be a quick route to self-extinguishment.
Therefore, this is a memoir of resilience and hope, because the route to redemption is just as slippery to grasp as the "why" of poor choices. So many aspects of life are slippery, even though in our judgment we like to pretend otherwise.
Giving this one 5 stars, throwing them all up into the air. Here's to hope and resilience.
Thanh discloses early in her memoir that she had (only recently at that point) been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. In the decades before that she had an astonishing capacity to make poor decisions—and that is what I related to. We all make mistakes, but we don't all reach a point in our lives where we look back and marvel at how self-destructive / self-punishing / poorly-informed / deluded / immature we actually were.
Based on some of the reviews here, I didn't expect this book to be so strangely beautiful and insightful. Thanh gives the reader more than enough background to sympathize, but also leaves us to wonder about all those poor choices. It's not neat and tidy but there it is. But poor choices and drug use have a certain inertia, and unless someone gets out of the death spiral it can be a quick route to self-extinguishment.
Therefore, this is a memoir of resilience and hope, because the route to redemption is just as slippery to grasp as the "why" of poor choices. So many aspects of life are slippery, even though in our judgment we like to pretend otherwise.
Giving this one 5 stars, throwing them all up into the air. Here's to hope and resilience.
November 5, 2019
The emotion of Mistakes To Run With is disarming. You digest Thanh’s concise sentences in gulps, only to realize they are pungent. (Like desiccated bees perhaps?) You are pulled along and yet pull away, shocked with each chapter and turn of her story. I am amazed at her survival, her resilience, her suffering, and her raw strength. Mistakes is an incredible story of a challenging and full life, the living of which culminates in an incredible prose. Her words are the affect and effect of buoyed hope.
December 29, 2019
Yasuko Thanh spent years writing with a passion before returning to school as a mature student to study creative writing, and bursting onto the Canadian literary scene with well-reviewed short stories and a novel. Articles referred to her having lived on the streets and worked as a busker. However, her background was actually less breezily eclectic, as seen in her memoir, which tells of childhood pain turning to adolescent alienation, shoplifting and drinking turning to sex work and crack smoking. It’s a hard read, and sometimes feels like one brutal or hard to relate to thing after another (and that’s just reading it, not living it!). But I thought it had real value in increasing empathy.
A few of the things I thought about as I read:
- She and I grew up around the same time and place: I was faced with a mix of the familiar and that which was far outside my own experience. I thought back to girls I knew, the relationships they had or interactions I glimpsed, through the lens her memoir provides.
- She writes of having difficult, withholding parents, and the effect on her. This made me think of the weird alchemy around childhood experiences and how they do or don’t shape you, what opportunities may or may not exist, how choices narrow or expand at different points in our lives.
- The way she writes about her self-image while doing sex work as a very young woman, and relationships with pimps and other sex workers, was really thought-provoking and subtle.
- Her zigzaggy path to her current life made me think about backsliding into old patterns, and what supports make a difference.
A few of the things I thought about as I read:
- She and I grew up around the same time and place: I was faced with a mix of the familiar and that which was far outside my own experience. I thought back to girls I knew, the relationships they had or interactions I glimpsed, through the lens her memoir provides.
- She writes of having difficult, withholding parents, and the effect on her. This made me think of the weird alchemy around childhood experiences and how they do or don’t shape you, what opportunities may or may not exist, how choices narrow or expand at different points in our lives.
- The way she writes about her self-image while doing sex work as a very young woman, and relationships with pimps and other sex workers, was really thought-provoking and subtle.
- Her zigzaggy path to her current life made me think about backsliding into old patterns, and what supports make a difference.
February 9, 2019
“Brutally honest” is a time-honoured cliché when talking about memoirs, but this book earns all of the times I’m sure it will be used. “Brutally inspiring” might be an even more apt turn of phrase - Yasuko Thanh’s raw prose and unflinching examination of her mistake-filled path through life are sometimes as difficult to read about as they are admirable. We’ve all made mistakes in our lives - what makes this writer and this book so special is that here, she has not run away from a single one of hers.
June 7, 2022
I did not know what drew me to Suko and her story until she mentioned she had BPD- then I understood because so do I. I could empathize and understand many of her passages regarding her thought processes and why she did many of the things she did. This book made me feel understood.
May 25, 2019
It's a Vancouver sex work memoir. Of course I read it. And stayed up too late all week because I needed to read "just one more chapter."
Thanh describes her experience as an underage run-away who ended up low track in a brutal and unflinching way. She's clearly done quite a bit of work on herself, analyzing how her childhood experiences and family life led to her mispent and exploited youth.
I tend to question any diagnosis of borderline personality disorder applied to difficult women as it has become a catch-all explanation for rebelliousness, but Thanh makes a convincing case of explaining how the need for recognition (whether through over-achieving or acting out) influenced her decisions.
Her story also disrupts the typical one-way recovery narrative and addiction/recovery binary through frank depictions of her struggles to leave a toxic relationship, manage her mental health and substance use over years. She does not depict chapters in her life as clear cut eras of sex worker, student or mother, but rather how urges and instincts linger and re-surface throughout our lives.
Thanh describes her experience as an underage run-away who ended up low track in a brutal and unflinching way. She's clearly done quite a bit of work on herself, analyzing how her childhood experiences and family life led to her mispent and exploited youth.
I tend to question any diagnosis of borderline personality disorder applied to difficult women as it has become a catch-all explanation for rebelliousness, but Thanh makes a convincing case of explaining how the need for recognition (whether through over-achieving or acting out) influenced her decisions.
Her story also disrupts the typical one-way recovery narrative and addiction/recovery binary through frank depictions of her struggles to leave a toxic relationship, manage her mental health and substance use over years. She does not depict chapters in her life as clear cut eras of sex worker, student or mother, but rather how urges and instincts linger and re-surface throughout our lives.
October 29, 2019
It’s an interesting enough read, I think, for those that can relate to a troubling, yet not excessively abusive childhood. Torturous thinking turned mental illness, drug abuse, bad relationships, disregard for one’s body... The story ends abruptly with something like... Oh and then I saw a therapist and went to university where I discovered I was smarter than
I thought and now I win literary awards. I found it annoying as a person who has had similar experiences. Rant done.
I thought and now I win literary awards. I found it annoying as a person who has had similar experiences. Rant done.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 3, 2019
A really beautiful and poignant memoir about growing up in a loveless family, struggling with childhood depression and living on the streets. Thanh is great with description, and in her honesty. I could not put this book down. I found it very arresting and gripping. I wish the best for Suko and for her mental health.
July 11, 2019
I really wanted to love this book but the writing let me down. There were so many interesting aspects that could have been explored, but it read more like a list of shock-value experiences with no depth of analysis and a weak—sometimes conflicting—narrative.
March 4, 2021
I'm astounded by my power to delude myself into making the oddest connections. p159
Considering how much I love her wonderful fiction, I had imagined a different life for Yasuko, in which she had found the serenity and a peaceful place to write.I never connected her with my DTES neighbourhood where our paths must have crossed. I wished this was fiction, for its a tough read. My admiration and respect to YT for her remarkable candour and her brave and open heart.
Who wanted to mine their psyche when they could dance on its glittering surface? p230
YT has managed in her life to do both.
After one good hit on the pipe the world disappeared, and I'd be accepted into a world of wonder and light...part of the connective tissue of humanity. For 10, 15 minutes. Before needing one more. Always one more. p73
Back then, I was trying to cobble myself together out of bits others had thrown away, with a box of mismatched tools. p178
What she has created is a strong presence with an authentic voice.
May she find the joy and inclination to keep writing.
July 10, 2025
DNF. Could not deal with the narration style.
February 26, 2020
As an avid reader of the memoir genre, I've come to expect a carefully crafted arc in the storytelling, which I did not feel in reading this book.
I wanted to like it, especially as it's written by a local author, and by someone who managed to harness reading and writing as a way to leave a life as a sex trade worker. However,I honestly feel that this book needed significant editing of detail -- or perhaps, a more careful curation of those details.
Every chapter seemed to be a variation of previous chapters: a detailed recounting of bad dates, tricks, drug use, and of toxic interactions with her pimp. As a result, the book read more like a personal diary recounting individual "mistakes" rather than as an introspective attempt to meaningfully catalogue and reflect on key incidents and people that shaped the narrator's choices in life. I think that the curation of details is important in personal stories if the narrative is going to move beyond shock value and challenge the reader to think beyond that person's life story to broader themes.
If you don't care about those broader themes, this book will likely be appealing, because it certainly offers a detailed look into one individual's tumultous life on the streets, but if you are looking for something with more depth, you may be disappointed.
I wanted to like it, especially as it's written by a local author, and by someone who managed to harness reading and writing as a way to leave a life as a sex trade worker. However,I honestly feel that this book needed significant editing of detail -- or perhaps, a more careful curation of those details.
Every chapter seemed to be a variation of previous chapters: a detailed recounting of bad dates, tricks, drug use, and of toxic interactions with her pimp. As a result, the book read more like a personal diary recounting individual "mistakes" rather than as an introspective attempt to meaningfully catalogue and reflect on key incidents and people that shaped the narrator's choices in life. I think that the curation of details is important in personal stories if the narrative is going to move beyond shock value and challenge the reader to think beyond that person's life story to broader themes.
If you don't care about those broader themes, this book will likely be appealing, because it certainly offers a detailed look into one individual's tumultous life on the streets, but if you are looking for something with more depth, you may be disappointed.
December 17, 2019
I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley so in exchange I’m providing an honest review.
I loved this book. Thanh is brutally honest about her life, which can’t be easy with the experiences she has lived through. Thanh is engaging and real while sharing tales of homelessness (both as a youth and an adult), mental illness, working in the sex trade, and dealing in drugs. But she’s also relatable, like when she speaks to the love of her children, wondering if she’s messing her kids up, relationship issues, and self-image and self-esteem issues.
It just goes to show, regardless of our background, we often share certain feelings and experiences. We can relate to each other’s stories, regardless of our socioeconomic status. Keep this in mind next time you see someone down on their luck, someone on the street, or someone who needs a hand up. You could have a family member, a friend, or even a successful colleague that has had these types challenges in their life, but at some point they turned things around; though likely not without the help of others.
I loved this book. Thanh is brutally honest about her life, which can’t be easy with the experiences she has lived through. Thanh is engaging and real while sharing tales of homelessness (both as a youth and an adult), mental illness, working in the sex trade, and dealing in drugs. But she’s also relatable, like when she speaks to the love of her children, wondering if she’s messing her kids up, relationship issues, and self-image and self-esteem issues.
It just goes to show, regardless of our background, we often share certain feelings and experiences. We can relate to each other’s stories, regardless of our socioeconomic status. Keep this in mind next time you see someone down on their luck, someone on the street, or someone who needs a hand up. You could have a family member, a friend, or even a successful colleague that has had these types challenges in their life, but at some point they turned things around; though likely not without the help of others.
March 27, 2019
Mistakes to Run With is without a doubt, the grittiest memoir I have ever read. Yasuko Thanh writes about a difficult and traumatic life with blunt yet beautiful prose- though the subject matter is incredibly tough, I found it easy to read & flew through the pages. I admire her tenacity, she has gone through hell and lived to acknowledge and recount her story up to now. It's very much a story of survival, punctuated by bursts of hope. I don't think many people who have lived through what she has would have the strength to be so honest about their experiences. Thanh is a force to be reckoned with, and her memoir shows that mistakes are a part of life- not something to run away from, but to grow with.
April 8, 2019
A raw and gritty memoir about trying to write and right oneself out of 18 levels of hell and then some, by the author of Mysterious Fragrance of the Yellow Mountains.
April 20, 2019
Couldn’t put this book down until I could finish (read in one single day). Such heart breaking experiences from childhood onwards, but so beautifully written. Can’t wait to read more of her work.
June 23, 2019
Interesting read, and a little upsetting. But to go from life on the street, to a award winning author....the story is pretty compelling. But upsetting.
June 21, 2020
3.5. Not the lifestyle one expects of an award winning author. I will read her writing in a new light now.
November 19, 2021
I enjoyed this, but I was looking for a redemption narrative and didn't quite get what I wanted. still liked the writing and the story quite a lot.
June 7, 2022
3.5 - A good, informative read about the struggles Thanh has gone through during her life and who she is now. I did find the writing to jump at times and had trouble finding out how long certain things had occurred, but that seems to be Thanh's style. Overall Mistakes to Run With has some gorgeous prose and is a must-read memoir!
May 1, 2020
An amazing story, told gracefully. I would definitely recommend this memoir. Yasuko Thanh is primarily a fiction writer, so I went in wary of it's non-fiction techniques but was pleasantly surprised.
A few things that I admired:
-although it only happened a few times, Thanh mentioned parts that she didn't remember, and even one instance of how she remembered one way but has been proven wrong by so many other eye witnesses. Her admissions built my trust in the narrator, but more importantly, she made meaning out of the parts she didn't remember - something a lot of memoir writers tend to avoid.
-the scope was perfect. I got the sense that at one point this book had been 1,000 pages long and she managed to get it down to under 300. That meant that she had a clear idea of what story she was trying to tell and could put other important (and compelling - I have so many questions floating around my head about her adult life) storylines aside for the sake of this book's plot.
-the story was so obviously told to us by a woman who is distanced enough from her trauma to shape it into a story for others. In other words, this is absolutely not Therapist Chair writing. This is a book by a talented writer, re-writer, and editor, who massaged her material until it worked. And damn does it. Five stars.
A few things that I admired:
-although it only happened a few times, Thanh mentioned parts that she didn't remember, and even one instance of how she remembered one way but has been proven wrong by so many other eye witnesses. Her admissions built my trust in the narrator, but more importantly, she made meaning out of the parts she didn't remember - something a lot of memoir writers tend to avoid.
-the scope was perfect. I got the sense that at one point this book had been 1,000 pages long and she managed to get it down to under 300. That meant that she had a clear idea of what story she was trying to tell and could put other important (and compelling - I have so many questions floating around my head about her adult life) storylines aside for the sake of this book's plot.
-the story was so obviously told to us by a woman who is distanced enough from her trauma to shape it into a story for others. In other words, this is absolutely not Therapist Chair writing. This is a book by a talented writer, re-writer, and editor, who massaged her material until it worked. And damn does it. Five stars.
May 6, 2020
Enjoyed the writer's style telling this story. I'm not usually a huge memoir reader but this came recommended and I found it a captivating read. I would have liked to hear more details about how she overcame her addiction but also appreciate that this was her story to tell as she wanted to tell it.
March 11, 2025
Rhi told me to update my good reads so here i am. Good book. Trauma memoir. Ending was triggering to me. Also the author is hot.
July 15, 2020
I found this book challenging and difficult in all the right ways. At times, I had to take breaks because even when Thanh takes positive steps forward, you feel that mistakes are going to be made, people are going to reveal their agendas, and decisions will be fraught with hardship.
Through it all is a hope that things will get better. You hope that Thanh can transcend her circumstances and those surrounding her. This isn’t a spoiler as she wrote the book and we know she did make it out alive.
The book made me think about all the people who didn’t make it out. All those silent voices who never got to share their stories. Thanh can’t possibly speak for all those lost people, but she does give a voice to them, shows the violence (both physical and emotional), and provides insight to her situation through intense honesty and vulnerability.
Through it all is a hope that things will get better. You hope that Thanh can transcend her circumstances and those surrounding her. This isn’t a spoiler as she wrote the book and we know she did make it out alive.
The book made me think about all the people who didn’t make it out. All those silent voices who never got to share their stories. Thanh can’t possibly speak for all those lost people, but she does give a voice to them, shows the violence (both physical and emotional), and provides insight to her situation through intense honesty and vulnerability.
April 23, 2020
Fantastic read
A real gripper
A real gripper
April 7, 2020
Thanh's memoir covers a lot of hard topics - assault, racism, family neglect, sex work, homelessness, incarceration, abuse, and drug use. I appreciate how openly she shares her experiences with the reader. How she brings us from her adopted family's failures to care for her to her work as a sex worker (and exploitation by men who mismanage her earnings) to her attempts to realize her dreams.
August 15, 2020
Memoirs are so fascinating to me. Diving into the mind of someone who has gone through such difficult circumstances makes me completely removed from my own mind. I always find myself unsettled by these memoirs but also so thankful I read them.
Mistakes To Run With is not just a tell-all about her life as a teenage sex worker through the elements of the 18 levels of Buddhist Hell, it’s a memoir that makes you really think on a deeper level. The feeling this book gave me stuck with me for an entire week. I felt uncomfortable but also thankful for the childhood I had.
This was such a harrowing read. I was so distressed for most of the book I had to read it in one sitting because the thought of returning to it brought such pain to my heart. This is such a potent read I really recommend this to people who have a strong stomach and wish to learn more about what goes through a person’s mind who chooses to live such a life.
The biggest take from this book for me was that although Thanh has moved past her history and built a better life for herself her demons, ghosts, everything that haunts her continues to be present. Leaving the book made me realize that she continues to struggle to this day and that was what left me unsettled. The thought that this person has been through so much and the tone that the book finished on confirmed that she will continue to fight her past for the rest of her life made me incredibly sad. Thanh is a brave soul.
**Thank you Penguin Canada for sending me a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.**
Mistakes To Run With is not just a tell-all about her life as a teenage sex worker through the elements of the 18 levels of Buddhist Hell, it’s a memoir that makes you really think on a deeper level. The feeling this book gave me stuck with me for an entire week. I felt uncomfortable but also thankful for the childhood I had.
This was such a harrowing read. I was so distressed for most of the book I had to read it in one sitting because the thought of returning to it brought such pain to my heart. This is such a potent read I really recommend this to people who have a strong stomach and wish to learn more about what goes through a person’s mind who chooses to live such a life.
The biggest take from this book for me was that although Thanh has moved past her history and built a better life for herself her demons, ghosts, everything that haunts her continues to be present. Leaving the book made me realize that she continues to struggle to this day and that was what left me unsettled. The thought that this person has been through so much and the tone that the book finished on confirmed that she will continue to fight her past for the rest of her life made me incredibly sad. Thanh is a brave soul.
**Thank you Penguin Canada for sending me a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.**
Displaying 1 - 30 of 117 reviews