With or without you
Domenica Ruta's memoir is akin to a scab that you can't resist picking. Excruciatingly painful to read, With or without You insists that the reader continue Domenica's journey, hoping for her redemption. Ruta's description of her surroundings is hauntingly graphic. She is able to capture the people and places in a manner that is all too real. As I was rooting for her survival, I was also grieved by the choices she made that lead to her near destruction. This was an easy read in the sense that the story was compelling. I just kept wishing that it was fiction.
Rated of 5
by Vicky R. (Cumming, GA)
Courage and survival
I had to continue to remind myself that this story was nonfiction. It's hard for most of us to imagine that someone - a little girl - can grow up in this environment and not only survive but end up thriving (although obviously not without emotional scars). A mesmerizing story, often full of despair and sadness, but the author manages to inject it periodically with doses of comedy and laughter. If I were to be granted a wish list of people I could have lunch with...the author would top my list.
Rated of 5
by Kristina K. (Glendale, CA)
With or Without You
The description on the back of the book hales it as "a darkly hilarious chronicle of a misfit '90s childhood." This description doesn't do this memoir justice. In beautifully fluid and poetic prose, Domenica Ruta presents her life's story much like she describes her experience of sobriety, where "memories return slowly and in the wrong order." And it's impossible not to feel the raw pain sandwiched between her wry or lyric observations. Not since Dorothy Allison's autobiographical novel "Bastard Out of Carolina" or Jeannette Wall's "The Glass Castle" have I read a memoir this powerful. Depicting complicated, dysfunctional family relationships plagued with abuse and addiction, Ruta also presents the rare, glimmering moments of kindness that, as those of us who have survived similar families know, keep the darkness from swallowing us whole.
Rated of 5
by Beth C. (Sioux Falls, SD)
With or Without You: Memoir by Dominica Ruta
Dominica (Nikki) Ruta was a child in the 1980s. Her parents didn't marry, but she knew them both well since they lived in the relatively small community of Danvers, MA. The title of the book, "With or Without You" comes from the song by the group U2 which was popular at the time and a favorite of Nikki and her mother, Kathi. Kathi was a drug addict who managed to live on the fringe - at one time amassing $1million and just as quickly losing it. Nikki's childhood was anything but normal. Nonetheless, she got into a prep school on scholarships and then into Oberlin College. Nikki also had a severe drug and alcohol problem.
This is an interesting memoir, but memoirs written by ex-addicts are somewhat suspect in that one cannot be sure that there is a reliable narrator. When Nikki describes various incidences in her childhood and during her school years, it's hard to know how much she really was able to remember since she was frequently high on one form of drug or another as well as drinking excessively.
That being said, the book is does give a fascinating glimpse into the lives of Nikki and her mother.
Rated of 5
by Lisa G. (Riverwoods, IL)
With or Without You
Anyone who thinks her life is bad should read this book. I have no doubt the incidents described are true but I found myself getting angry as the author followed more and more in her mother's footsteps. Although I knew that the author's life would ultimately improve enough to write this book she spent very little time on her transformation. At some point I switched from thinking "poor Nikki" when she was young to being flat out disgusted with her as she reached high school and college. By the time she cleaned up her act I really didn't care. If you are a fan of The Glass Castle and similar dysfunction parent books you will like this memoir.
Rated of 5
by Cam G. (Murrells Inlet, SC)
WITH OR WITHOUT YOU
You will love it, you will hate it, you will even despair, but no matter how you feel, you will be in thrall of this young woman's life and how she turns it around. She was born to a drug-addicted mother who, incredibly, turned her daughter into one as well when she was a teen. Ruta is well into her 20's when she comes to realize that she needs to change her life into one without addiction and without her mother.
This is quite a read!
Rated of 5
by Amy (MA)
With or Without You
This is a tough book because it is a very tough true story. I had to pace myself as I read this or the story got to be too much for me. This author wrote about her life which was extremely difficult and with her own struggle with alcohol and self worth. I thought that her writing had the edge of a survivor and clearly despite many set backs, it seems like she is on the right track. I do recommend the book, but it is not for those who like their reality sugar coated.
A bold, mesmerizing novel about the woman known as "Typhoid Mary," the first known healthy carrier of typhoid fever in the burgeoning metropolis of early twentieth century New York.
Z, the novel about the life of Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald is at points charming and; like another reviewer, I kept thinking of the movie, "Midnight...
read more
Although heavy on the scientific details, which slowed down the story for me (OK, I admit, I was one of those liberal arts majors who skipped out on...
read more
Loved this book. Magical, quirky, enchanting I could go on. All books do not have to be literary fiction, sometimes it is just so comforting to read...
read more
British Parliament asks Amazon to clarify why it pays $9 million in income tax on $23 billion of UK sales.(May 20 2013) Amazon will be called back to give further evidence to members of the British Parliament "to clarify how its activities in the U.K. justify its low corporate...
Full Story
of 5
by CW
of 5
by Beth C. (Sioux Falls, SD)
