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Irreversible Things
Fiction. Literary Nonfiction. Brimming with wit and heart, IRREVERSIBLE THINGS follows three decades in the life of author-qua-narrator Lisa and her charismatic Mormon family, from childhood to puberty to adulthood. From a young girl grappling with early friendships, first crushes, and a beloved neighbor's shocking murder, to a young woman beginning her own family, dealing with infertility, and caring for a father with Alzheimer's, this work expands our understanding of the novel form, weaving together memoir, fiction, and the fiction of remembering.
"In Lisa Van Orman Hadley's novel-through-stories IRREVERSIBLE THINGS, a family moves from a Florida beach town to a Utah mountain town, trading in a dark situation next door for life with their Mormon family and transitioning from surfing to skiing. Lisa Van Orman is also the lead character's name; she narrates all of these changes. Her family's stories are tight and composed, delivered with such gravity that they can stand on their own, though together they form a heartbreaking tale about growing up and growing into an understanding of your family...Thoughtful and funny, IRREVERSIBLE THINGS plays with the forms of short stories, novels, and memoirs, resulting in hybrid text that articulates change across a lifetime."--Camille-Yvette Welsch, Foreword Reviews
"This hybrid approach is integral to the content--Van Orman Hadley's implicit and explicit interrogation of memory--as well as to the overall structure. Fans of Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried, Sandra Cisneros' The House on Mango Street, and Justin Torres' We Are the Animals will also appreciate IRREVERSIBLE THINGS. But a fair warning: don't be fooled by the ease of this read or by the sheer joy of following this narrator into adulthood. The heartbreak catches you off guard with such force that you drop even your loudest, most intrusive questions."--Rachel Rueckert, Columbia Journal
"In Lisa Van Orman Hadley's novel-through-stories IRREVERSIBLE THINGS, a family moves from a Florida beach town to a Utah mountain town, trading in a dark situation next door for life with their Mormon family and transitioning from surfing to skiing. Lisa Van Orman is also the lead character's name; she narrates all of these changes. Her family's stories are tight and composed, delivered with such gravity that they can stand on their own, though together they form a heartbreaking tale about growing up and growing into an understanding of your family...Thoughtful and funny, IRREVERSIBLE THINGS plays with the forms of short stories, novels, and memoirs, resulting in hybrid text that articulates change across a lifetime."--Camille-Yvette Welsch, Foreword Reviews
"This hybrid approach is integral to the content--Van Orman Hadley's implicit and explicit interrogation of memory--as well as to the overall structure. Fans of Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried, Sandra Cisneros' The House on Mango Street, and Justin Torres' We Are the Animals will also appreciate IRREVERSIBLE THINGS. But a fair warning: don't be fooled by the ease of this read or by the sheer joy of following this narrator into adulthood. The heartbreak catches you off guard with such force that you drop even your loudest, most intrusive questions."--Rachel Rueckert, Columbia Journal
174 pages, Paperback
Published November 12, 2019
187 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 41 reviews
February 1, 2020
Delightful fictional vignettes inspired (I assume) by Hadley's own life. Sometimes in fiction it feels like childhood is completely romanticized, but Hadley's girl narrator felt so real as she played truth-or-dare with her friends, moved to Utah, observed her aging progenitors, and coped with her own infertility. She has a chapter on feeling itchy when everyone's being checked for lice at school. A chapter about how she tells her mom she wants store-bought chicken pot pie for her birthday, but her mom tries to make them and they are very unsatisfying. Very slice-of-life kind of things that feel real and unfinished. The scenes are clever, hilarious, heart-nudging, and nostalgic. My only complaint was that I wish it had been longer.
Here are a few quotes:
"We claw ourselves up our mother's body like it belongs to us."
"She tells us that we will eat slices of homemade bread as thick as a Bible at the ZCMI mall downtown."
"While they are dressed in coordinated snow pants and parkas with season passes hanging from their zippers, I look like an overweight carpool mom who robs banks on the side."
Here are a few quotes:
"We claw ourselves up our mother's body like it belongs to us."
"She tells us that we will eat slices of homemade bread as thick as a Bible at the ZCMI mall downtown."
"While they are dressed in coordinated snow pants and parkas with season passes hanging from their zippers, I look like an overweight carpool mom who robs banks on the side."
December 24, 2019
I should begin this review with a caveat: I am Lisa’s husband, and make no pretensions to describe her work impartially or devoid of context. To my surprise, the character who resembles me is portrayed sparingly, but more than generously. I have no axe to grind! Instead of hiding my biases, therefore, I will lean in to them a bit, and give a sense of how my reading of Irreversible Things was made richer by the details I know about Lisa and her family.
The first thing I will say, however, is that I believe I would have loved this book even if it had been written by a stranger. Lisa’s collection of stories has a universal appeal, with rave reviews from both children and literary critics. The book is redolent of childhood in the 80s, but contains a spectrum of emotional valence that anyone can relate to. Lisa’s writing, rewriting, editing, and further rewriting crates a palimpsest, where stories are able to simultaneously make you cry, make your child laugh, and give you pause to think, “beautiful.”
My favorite story, the Red Tide, illustrates this layering of beauty, sadness, humor, and human interest. In it, the narrator is on the cusp of leaving Florida for Utah, a move which also marks her passage into adolescence. The narrator, her best friend, and three other characters play truth or dare while eating pizza and watching HBO. On the face of it, this is as mundane to 80s kids as walking to school. But glances to the beach augur a deeper set of emotions: “Even the ocean, usually so clear that I can see the little grains of salt suspended in it, is cloudy and off-color. And the sand, usually white and fine as cake powder, is littered with long knots of seaweed and something that looks like motor-oil.”
As the game progresses, the narrator’s anxiety ratchets up. This crescendo is punctured by a hilarious prank call to the Show-N-Tail and punctuated by a courageous dare. Throughout the story, however, the narrator also reveals the future of her friends. In short, salient snippets, we see how they later marry, have children, live, and die. When it’s the narrator’s turn, she muses on the inevitability of everything, and then breaks the fourth wall to say, “you already know my future.”
Like the Red Tide, the rest of the novel follows a rough ordering of the narrator’s life, but is also atemporal at points. Lisa’s playfulness with time and chronology is most felt in the novel’s eponymous story, Irreversible Things, which moves backwards from the aftermath of a tragic murder. In another story, Lisa invites readers to choose their own adventure. Divorced from 80s- and 90s-era children’s books, this convention shows how both time and truth are relative. Before presenting the adventure options, the narrator remarks, “what I remember is a simultaneity of possible outcomes instead of a sequence of actual events.” Reading the novel is like entering Schrödinger's box and finding a woman who is depressed yet happy, humorous yet scared, and young but alive to the richness of her stories.
As promised, here are some things I noticed because of my closeness to the Van Ormans: most of the significant events are true, even if the details take a more magical form. Irreversible Things is not billed as memoir, but Lisa’s life is closely correlated to the narrator’s. To this point, I can attest that her family is as generous, kind, adventurous, and loving as they seem in the novel. I’ve had friends say, “I wish that were my mom growing up,” and I am sure many readers would agree.
But if you really want a glimpse into Lisa’s personality–and I mean the deepest part that drives a lot of her day-to-day thoughts and actions–you needn't look further than the puns. As a wordsmith, Lisa loves puns; and they are everywhere in this book. Many times I’ve caught her chuckling to herself, only to find out that she was remembering a pun she made earlier in the day. Knowing this, I also chuckled at the many times she snuck them in. This one is hidden in a story about an interaction with her mother that happens in a bathroom: “as an adult, I can fix almost anything that goes wrong with the toilet from all the hours I spent plumbing its depths as a kid.”
It’s impossible to say how Lisa’s story will end. Irreversible Things ends on a joyful note. Time flies like an arrow, as they say, but fruit flies like a banana.
The first thing I will say, however, is that I believe I would have loved this book even if it had been written by a stranger. Lisa’s collection of stories has a universal appeal, with rave reviews from both children and literary critics. The book is redolent of childhood in the 80s, but contains a spectrum of emotional valence that anyone can relate to. Lisa’s writing, rewriting, editing, and further rewriting crates a palimpsest, where stories are able to simultaneously make you cry, make your child laugh, and give you pause to think, “beautiful.”
My favorite story, the Red Tide, illustrates this layering of beauty, sadness, humor, and human interest. In it, the narrator is on the cusp of leaving Florida for Utah, a move which also marks her passage into adolescence. The narrator, her best friend, and three other characters play truth or dare while eating pizza and watching HBO. On the face of it, this is as mundane to 80s kids as walking to school. But glances to the beach augur a deeper set of emotions: “Even the ocean, usually so clear that I can see the little grains of salt suspended in it, is cloudy and off-color. And the sand, usually white and fine as cake powder, is littered with long knots of seaweed and something that looks like motor-oil.”
As the game progresses, the narrator’s anxiety ratchets up. This crescendo is punctured by a hilarious prank call to the Show-N-Tail and punctuated by a courageous dare. Throughout the story, however, the narrator also reveals the future of her friends. In short, salient snippets, we see how they later marry, have children, live, and die. When it’s the narrator’s turn, she muses on the inevitability of everything, and then breaks the fourth wall to say, “you already know my future.”
Like the Red Tide, the rest of the novel follows a rough ordering of the narrator’s life, but is also atemporal at points. Lisa’s playfulness with time and chronology is most felt in the novel’s eponymous story, Irreversible Things, which moves backwards from the aftermath of a tragic murder. In another story, Lisa invites readers to choose their own adventure. Divorced from 80s- and 90s-era children’s books, this convention shows how both time and truth are relative. Before presenting the adventure options, the narrator remarks, “what I remember is a simultaneity of possible outcomes instead of a sequence of actual events.” Reading the novel is like entering Schrödinger's box and finding a woman who is depressed yet happy, humorous yet scared, and young but alive to the richness of her stories.
As promised, here are some things I noticed because of my closeness to the Van Ormans: most of the significant events are true, even if the details take a more magical form. Irreversible Things is not billed as memoir, but Lisa’s life is closely correlated to the narrator’s. To this point, I can attest that her family is as generous, kind, adventurous, and loving as they seem in the novel. I’ve had friends say, “I wish that were my mom growing up,” and I am sure many readers would agree.
But if you really want a glimpse into Lisa’s personality–and I mean the deepest part that drives a lot of her day-to-day thoughts and actions–you needn't look further than the puns. As a wordsmith, Lisa loves puns; and they are everywhere in this book. Many times I’ve caught her chuckling to herself, only to find out that she was remembering a pun she made earlier in the day. Knowing this, I also chuckled at the many times she snuck them in. This one is hidden in a story about an interaction with her mother that happens in a bathroom: “as an adult, I can fix almost anything that goes wrong with the toilet from all the hours I spent plumbing its depths as a kid.”
It’s impossible to say how Lisa’s story will end. Irreversible Things ends on a joyful note. Time flies like an arrow, as they say, but fruit flies like a banana.
December 6, 2019
I don’t usually read a lot of non-fiction, or auto biography, but Irreversible Things blends together both in a beautiful and creative narrative that really captivated me. Each chapter is an exploration of the author’s life in a format that expands beyond the typical biography-style fiction narrative.
Starting with a ‘Table of Discontents’ the playful and thought-provoking narration introduces us to the author’s family and her childhood, building on a series of pivotal life events, including the ultimate Irreversible Things chapter: the violent murder of her next door neighbor’s mother told in backwards time order, as experienced by the 8 year old narrator.
Throughout the book, the author invokes a range of tones and emotions by her varied use of creative formats – a glossary of terms showcasing her mother’s endearingly creative use of swear words, a catalog of states they have left behind in their relocation from Florida to Utah, and even a chapter titled “Puberty in Six Acts” including the awkwardness that is pre-teen sexuality, compounded by awkward parenting.
The narration style left me thinking about each story long afterward; the ripple effect a pivot moment creates in our lives, and how the stories we build around those memories (individually, and as a family unit) stay with us into adulthood. The book is divided into two parts – childhood and adulthood, with the later years full of the ultimate struggles – infertility, a parent’s Alzheimers, family relationships, and even religion. There is just so much to unpack and enjoy in this book – readers may find themselves picking it up again and again. I know I have.
Starting with a ‘Table of Discontents’ the playful and thought-provoking narration introduces us to the author’s family and her childhood, building on a series of pivotal life events, including the ultimate Irreversible Things chapter: the violent murder of her next door neighbor’s mother told in backwards time order, as experienced by the 8 year old narrator.
Throughout the book, the author invokes a range of tones and emotions by her varied use of creative formats – a glossary of terms showcasing her mother’s endearingly creative use of swear words, a catalog of states they have left behind in their relocation from Florida to Utah, and even a chapter titled “Puberty in Six Acts” including the awkwardness that is pre-teen sexuality, compounded by awkward parenting.
The narration style left me thinking about each story long afterward; the ripple effect a pivot moment creates in our lives, and how the stories we build around those memories (individually, and as a family unit) stay with us into adulthood. The book is divided into two parts – childhood and adulthood, with the later years full of the ultimate struggles – infertility, a parent’s Alzheimers, family relationships, and even religion. There is just so much to unpack and enjoy in this book – readers may find themselves picking it up again and again. I know I have.
January 10, 2020
Reading this was like experiencing my childhood in an alternate universe. There were just so many similarities, from the obvious-- the youngest in a large, Mormon family, the TV shows and books of the time, the games played at sleepovers-- to the obscure-- losing a piece of innocence from a TV on late at night at said sleepover, a strange turn of phrase our parents shared, specific feelings at specific moments.
And yet, for all that specificity, these stories were both uniquely Lisa's and yet would also be familiar to anyone who has gone through the process of growing up, loving and hating and despising and admiring their parents, learning that things you always thought were an indelible part of you because they were the way of your family, are not actually true to your self at all.
Friends, I laughed, I wept, I remembered, I rejoiced.
Go read this. You will not be sorry.
And yet, for all that specificity, these stories were both uniquely Lisa's and yet would also be familiar to anyone who has gone through the process of growing up, loving and hating and despising and admiring their parents, learning that things you always thought were an indelible part of you because they were the way of your family, are not actually true to your self at all.
Friends, I laughed, I wept, I remembered, I rejoiced.
Go read this. You will not be sorry.
November 22, 2019
I found Irreversible Things hard to put down. I loved the voice of the narrator and the variety of literary techniques that Lisa used throughout the book. So many of her stories were relatable and made me laugh and/or cry. Great read!
February 9, 2024
'm obsessed with this book! My full review:
http://columbiajournal.org/review-irr...
http://columbiajournal.org/review-irr...
December 24, 2021
Reading this book is one of the few times that I've felt truly jealous of another author. I wish I had written this book. It's full of interesting creative experiments that work out wonderfully. It tells simple stories about an ordinary life and yet is compelling. If you are a fan of creative nonfiction or memoir, I highly recommend this slim volume.
June 14, 2020
Loved it. I agree with this upcoming Dialogue review by Sarah Moore: "Judging by its length, Irreversible Things is the kind of book that I should have been able to finish in a couple hours . . . Like its diminutive narrator however, Irreversible Things demands to be read slowly. No, perhaps “demands” is the wrong word—rather, this books sits down next to you, softly puts its hands on your knee and says, in a gentle Floridian accent, “wait honey, I don’t think you heard me right. Try reading that bit again.” It took me weeks to finish this book, because I kept pausing to catch my breath, re-reading and re-discovering passages, and savoring a language that is heartbreakingly simple and poetic."
I loved her use of allusions that pay off later in the text, her ability to take what at first seem like small, prosaic things, and surprise the reader with the emotional heft they end up having. She beautifully expresses the joy of being in her lively family. It fully deserves the Association for Mormon Letters Special Award for Literature it received.
I loved her use of allusions that pay off later in the text, her ability to take what at first seem like small, prosaic things, and surprise the reader with the emotional heft they end up having. She beautifully expresses the joy of being in her lively family. It fully deserves the Association for Mormon Letters Special Award for Literature it received.
December 6, 2019
Fantastic read that will make you laugh and cry as you follow the narrator through normal and not so normal events and growing up. Highly recommend.
January 25, 2020
This book gets 5 stars for having been written by someone I like in real life and an additional 7 stars for being extraordinary in and of itself, so 12 out of 5 stars. You should read this book.
April 4, 2020
I found this delightful. It felt very deliberate, a story bound by many smaller stories, everything serving a subtle purpose. To me this book felt calm, intentional and poetic. A quick read that is best taken slowly, IMO.
November 29, 2020
This book was a delight to read.
April 9, 2020
This fictionalized memoir was a pleasure to read and is a worthwhile addition to the growing corpus of Mormon literature.
The author plays with structure and form from chapter to chapter, almost as if it's a teenage journal she is scribbling and doodling in from day to day. Indeed, the psychedelic tie-dye design on the cover and the matching bookmark which comes with the book seem as if they are meant to convey that impression.
Some chapters are lists, others are short haiku poems, yet others are written in traditional chapter format. One chapter is written in the style of a Choose Your Own Adventure book, where the reader is directed onward to one or another page depending on the choice you make at the end of another. You're just never quite sure what you're going to get when you turn the page, and I thoroughly enjoyed that.
The author paints a loving portrait of her parents as she describes her life growing up in the Florida Panhandle with an older sister and two older brothers. She doesn't gloss over the embarrassing moments as she describes navigating her first crush, her experience being the only Mormon kid in her class, a short stint babysitting, and a slumber party where she is forced to share her best friend Emily with a trio of Jennifers whom she has never met before.
I loved reading about her family life, with frequent trips to the beach and occasional journeys to Utah and Idaho by car to visit grandparents and cousins.
Her mother, who was raised in Utah, frequently complains about how difficult it is to find your way around in Florida without the Utah mountains to use as a reference point. With her father, she pursues the path toward creating the best possible Reuben using the finest available ingredients. They eventually even devise a recipe for mixing up their own Thousand Island dressing.
When Halloween falls on a Sunday, her mother sends her and her brothers out trick or treating the night before, which thoroughly confuses the neighbors, who haven’t encountered the Utah tradition of shifting an event to another evening in cases where holidays like the 4th of July or New Year's Eve occur on the Sabbath day.
At 153 pages in length, it's a very quick read, and a very pleasant one. I highly recommend it.
The author plays with structure and form from chapter to chapter, almost as if it's a teenage journal she is scribbling and doodling in from day to day. Indeed, the psychedelic tie-dye design on the cover and the matching bookmark which comes with the book seem as if they are meant to convey that impression.
Some chapters are lists, others are short haiku poems, yet others are written in traditional chapter format. One chapter is written in the style of a Choose Your Own Adventure book, where the reader is directed onward to one or another page depending on the choice you make at the end of another. You're just never quite sure what you're going to get when you turn the page, and I thoroughly enjoyed that.
The author paints a loving portrait of her parents as she describes her life growing up in the Florida Panhandle with an older sister and two older brothers. She doesn't gloss over the embarrassing moments as she describes navigating her first crush, her experience being the only Mormon kid in her class, a short stint babysitting, and a slumber party where she is forced to share her best friend Emily with a trio of Jennifers whom she has never met before.
I loved reading about her family life, with frequent trips to the beach and occasional journeys to Utah and Idaho by car to visit grandparents and cousins.
Her mother, who was raised in Utah, frequently complains about how difficult it is to find your way around in Florida without the Utah mountains to use as a reference point. With her father, she pursues the path toward creating the best possible Reuben using the finest available ingredients. They eventually even devise a recipe for mixing up their own Thousand Island dressing.
When Halloween falls on a Sunday, her mother sends her and her brothers out trick or treating the night before, which thoroughly confuses the neighbors, who haven’t encountered the Utah tradition of shifting an event to another evening in cases where holidays like the 4th of July or New Year's Eve occur on the Sabbath day.
At 153 pages in length, it's a very quick read, and a very pleasant one. I highly recommend it.
November 13, 2019
Lovely, lyrical book. I’m still thinking of it months later.
December 11, 2019
It's witty and charming and totally heartfelt. Each chapter is a short story from Lisa's life. I learned so much about her. Definitely recommend.
January 16, 2020
More a collection of short stories. I ended up really enjoying this.
April 11, 2023
Irreversible Things blends together every style of writing that makes reading magical. Each chapter is its own short story, woven together in a creative, beautiful braid that sparkles from afar, reminding me of simpler, yet more complicated days: prank phone calls, mad libs, puberty, and everything in-between. She writes of loss—from baby teeth to pets, and everything else – in a way that is subtle, yet strong. The words sneak up on you, and within a split second my eyes are brimming with tears, the emotional reflex from my own memory and imagination mixed with the words on the page. Likewise, I giggled out loud when I read the chapter titled “curfew.”
I feel somehow like a better person for having read this. Like my own imperfections and issues are not unique, just like the most joyful memories we all have are somehow collectively shared in a way that makes the world a better place. “Remember who you are” she whispers to her newborn twins—reminding the reader that we must also remember who we are.
A truly beautiful book. Thank you for this, Lisa. I can't wait to experience more of your words!
I feel somehow like a better person for having read this. Like my own imperfections and issues are not unique, just like the most joyful memories we all have are somehow collectively shared in a way that makes the world a better place. “Remember who you are” she whispers to her newborn twins—reminding the reader that we must also remember who we are.
A truly beautiful book. Thank you for this, Lisa. I can't wait to experience more of your words!
December 12, 2022
I came across this lovely quick read when looking for comps for my forthcoming novel. It was a bit hard to find, but it was a delightful read that felt both familiar, cheeky and vulnerable at the same time.
Growing up in a religious household, there was overlap of mine and Lisa's upbringing that felt warmly familiar.
As a reader, I loved how she played with storytelling convention, both with timeline and with varying up the chapters to include epistolary, reported event, nicknames, lists, etc. It was fun and kept the pacing and interest present.
I think I related to Lisa's writing because she as the main character of the book is an observer. She notices the little things that combine for the whole. I feel a lot like that in my life. Perhaps most writers do. We are constantly scanning the scene for whatever morsels we can pick up and add to our contextual understanding of life and other humans.
Well done, Lisa!
Growing up in a religious household, there was overlap of mine and Lisa's upbringing that felt warmly familiar.
As a reader, I loved how she played with storytelling convention, both with timeline and with varying up the chapters to include epistolary, reported event, nicknames, lists, etc. It was fun and kept the pacing and interest present.
I think I related to Lisa's writing because she as the main character of the book is an observer. She notices the little things that combine for the whole. I feel a lot like that in my life. Perhaps most writers do. We are constantly scanning the scene for whatever morsels we can pick up and add to our contextual understanding of life and other humans.
Well done, Lisa!
June 5, 2023
I enjoyed this book so much, I wish I had written it. A short book, it made for a quick read, unfortunately. It's fiction that reads like a memoir that reads like the best fiction. The narrator is the author (so is it memoir?). Her voice is by turns innocent and hilarious. The narrator's voice matures as her character ages.
She deals with the trauma of moving cross-country as a child (something that resonated with me), death of a neighbor, living in a large family, mother-daughter relationships, dementia, infertility, faith.
I hope she writes something else soon.
She deals with the trauma of moving cross-country as a child (something that resonated with me), death of a neighbor, living in a large family, mother-daughter relationships, dementia, infertility, faith.
I hope she writes something else soon.
June 29, 2020
I loved this. So creative, involving many forms of writing throughout the book. All of the characters and situations were so real. I believe it's mostly autobiographical, although it's listed as fiction. I read it quickly, but am rereading it to savor everything before it's due back at the library. A great read for one of my first checked out books now that the library is offering curbside pickup.
November 28, 2020
This was lovely and poetic and relatable and eye-opening and comfortable and soothing and mournful all at once. I am counting my good fortune to have browsed into it, and counting it a blessing to have read. It feels like warm tea late at night, or sharing memories after the family is together for a funeral or a birth. I highly recommend it, especially to anyone adjacent to Mormonism.
June 28, 2021
I feel like part of the Van Orman family.
What a beautiful, quirky, personal, and entertaining novel. Very touching and so, so fun to read. I wish it was longer, but not because it should be, just because I want more. I'd suggest this book to just about anyone. Thoroughly delightful.
Nice to see, too, the cover art done by brother Jonny Van Orman. Stunning stuff.
What a beautiful, quirky, personal, and entertaining novel. Very touching and so, so fun to read. I wish it was longer, but not because it should be, just because I want more. I'd suggest this book to just about anyone. Thoroughly delightful.
Nice to see, too, the cover art done by brother Jonny Van Orman. Stunning stuff.
October 21, 2021
It was so different and so delightful! The way she wrote this was so clever. Her memories fell almost like my own even though I know they aren’t…that sounds like a weird thing to say…but it felt familiar. Some sections were heart breaking. Some were hilarious. Her mom was my favorite I wanted to meet her and give her a big huge hug!!
August 31, 2023
I found this while I was looking through every shelf in the library a couple days ago and I’m glad I picked it up. I’m sure that if I was at any other library, I wouldn’t have seen it, but seeing as it was the Provo library, and the author is someone that grew up (and maybe still is) Mormon, it was there sitting pretty on display.
December 1, 2025
I love every chapter of this book. From the glossary of made-up words her family says to the one-liners to the backwards journal, each chapter is a literary and lyrical surprise. Her beautiful sentences, bold structure, and intelligent storytelling weave together, making this a witty, heart-breaking, and honest story.
May 14, 2020
My sister said she felt like this was an alternate universe version of our family, sort of, so I was curious. It was good. I might have felt closer to the action if I were a female like the author of this autobiography. It made me want to be a better dad.
July 15, 2020
This is my favorite read of 2020 so far. I was completely surprised by it. It has a fresh, unique narration and the author makes every page feel almost poetic. While her story is uniquely hers, so much of it felt similar to my own. The book made me laugh and cry. I highly recommend it.
May 25, 2020
Gorgeous. This book deserves the rewards it’s garnered, and I’m so proud to know the brilliant author. Beautiful job, Lisa.
June 2, 2020
A beautifully written series of vignettes that make for a seamless and captivating story. It's funny and poignant and one of the best books I've read in years.
August 25, 2020
Gorgeous.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 41 reviews