Madeline’s Reviews > Famesick > Status Update

“I’d absorbed the feeling, familiar to anyone who has been labeled with anything from special needs student to troubled to problem child, that I might be dependent forever, unable to do the things that other people did with such ease.”

“The people who loved me seemed continually frustrated by what I could not seem to do; the basic niceties of human interaction I was unable to fake if the mood and circumstances were not exactly right. This must have seemed to the outside world like profound selfishness, but I felt continually frustrated by not having the words to explain the difference between won’t and can’t.“

“Usually, I was the friend who was curling into myself, pulling back from the world. I’d always wanted friends but had never known exactly what to do with them. If I had been know for anything in highschool, it was planning elaborate outfits for events that, at the last minute, I was too tired or terrified to attend.”

“We cling to our tragedy just as tightly as we cling to the things we love most, airtight explanations for what ails us.”

2/2 There would be no promise that they’d celebrate it or me. And yet, I’d continue on, living as that better person, whether my brother decided to like me or not. It sounded tiring, dreary, and necessary.”

1/3 “When I asked a more experienced sober person how I was going to convince my sibling that I was not, in fact, the person he thought I’d become or at the very least didn’t want to be, they mentioned the idea of a Living Amends. A living amends, it seemed, was the idea of undertaking your new sober lifestyle not only for yourself but as a consistent measure of apology to those you have harmed. -

“I called out to my mother who, hearing only the tone of my ‘mama?’, called an ambulance.”

“Making me want to throw my toys out of my pram”

It’s so interesting how she utilizes infantile language to position herself within each story, leading the reader to view her as a baby, victim, child, etc.
I wonder if she genuinely feels this way about herself or if she’s relying on this imagery to eschew responsibility from the narrative of her life.

growth has been so stunted by fame? Extreme fragility

“23 year old me thought it would be cool to create a television character who embraced her imperfect body. 30 year old me was trapped in hers.”

Soooooo excited to get this one from the library! I’ve had it on hold for 1 million weeks. I listened to the In Bed with the Right podcast episode on Lena Dunham where Adrian and Moira discussed this memoir. I highly recommend the episode.