With or Without You

2014 • 242 pages

The author grew up in Danvers, Massachusetts, a working-class, unforgiving town north of Boston where in the 17th century women were hanged as witches, in a trash-filled house on a dead-end road surrounded by a river and a salt marsh. Her mother, Kathi, a notorious local figure, was a drug addict and sometimes dealer whose life swung between welfare and riches. And yet she managed, despite the chaos she created, to instill in her daughter a love of stories. Kathi frequently kept her daughter home from school to watch such classics as the Godfather movies and everything by Martin Scorsese and Woody Allen. Despite the fact that there was not a book to be found in her household, Domenica developed a love of reading, which helped her believe that she could transcend this life of undying grudges, self-inflicted misfortune, and the crooked moral code that Kathi and her cohorts lived by. This is the story of the author's unconventional coming of age, a chronicle of a misfit '90s youth and the necessary and painful act of breaking away, and of overcoming her own addictions and demons in the process.

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Chris Blocker

There are books people need to get out. Personal works written to someone they love or hate that perhaps should stay personal. Often this is my reaction when I read a memoir. Nice story, but why? Especially when the writer has obvious talent I can't help but question him or her. Why not fictionalize this? Why put something out that is so personal?

It's what makes rating a book like this too difficult. It's the reason I struggled with my ratings for [b:Life Inside: A Memoir|278194|Life Inside A Memoir|Mindy Lewis|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1354847505s/278194.jpg|269816] and [b:The Last Lecture|2318271|The Last Lecture|Randy Pausch|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1365984624s/2318271.jpg|3364076]. Perhaps I shouldn't put a value to personal memoirs. Ruta's story is interesting, written fairly well, but to put a value to her story of heartache and redemption—I can't do it. But then is putting a “value” to a book ever a good idea? (I'm beginning to wonder.)

Ruta proves to be an intelligent and promising writer. Her style was good, but I would've personally preferred a more linear narrative. Her story is somehow both tragic and not. I don't know, what can I say about this memoir? In my opinion, the best part of the book was the epilogue, where Ruta answers some of my questions about purpose and ties up the loose strands in a poetic, meaningful way.

Yeah, that about sums it up. I should just stay away from memoirs.