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Aug 27, 2015richseeley rated this title 1 out of 5 stars
While I generally like Anne Lamott's non-fiction spiritual books, I found this novel very dissatisfying because it was so judgmental. While I am 68 years old, my sympathy was with Rosie, the 17-year-old villain of the piece. Her alcohol and drug use did not seem that out of control considering it is happening in an era where young people have little or no hope for the future. Rosie's mother, Elizabeth and Rosie's evil stepfather were hypocritical to an extreme that would shame God. Having been drinkers and dopers in their own youths, they crack down on their daughter in a way only a Nazi could love. Most of Lamott's sympathies seem to be with the neo-Fascist parents, which is a huge disappointment considering that I thought the author while Christian was somewhat liberal. In my own youth, I knew kids like Rosie who experimented heavily with drugs in high school but went on to have successful college and professional careers without their parents sending them to the kind of concentration camp that LaMott seems to recommend in her novel. The author's hateful and judgmental portrayal of a 17-year-old girl and the novel's glorification of her fascist parents makes this a book only Alcoholics Anonymous Nazis could love.