My Never Ending List

Someone help.  Anybody, somebody, everybody, nobody?  Mary Rose was fifteen when she wrote this journal and whether she intended for anyone to read it or not, the pain is real, almost too real unless you know her circumstances.  Her pain comes from a variety of sources, internally and externally and when she writes the messages is clear, she’s hurting.  Mary Rose suffered from cystic fibrosis, from sexual and abusive relationships, from alcoholism, from drug addiction and from parents who just didn’t care.  To hear her story, you have to be strong, you have to want to hear her message or otherwise you won’t understand it.  Her message is that she wants help and she wants to be loved.  I am attracted to these types of books; they scream at me, they pull everything out of me and yank at my soul, dragging me to feel the emotions and the thoughts those individuals experience. Sometimes I am left drained and other times, I am left feeling invigorated and with Mary Rose I am left standing in the middle.  Mary Rose felt abandoned by her mother as her mother chose her abusive boyfriend over her own daughter.  This on-and-off relationship coupled with screaming matches often left Mary Rose alone and scared.  Alcohol and drugs were a great coping mechanism which lasted only as long as the high lasted.  Friends, money and school all come into the picture and it becomes a balancing act with some things being cast aside when things get too complicated.  Mary Rose is on a first-name basis with the police and her scars don’t just come from the treatments from her disease.  So many times she tries to handle life but it just becomes too difficult for her on her own, so she copes the best that she can with what she is given and what she knows. 

So many times Mary Rose states that she is going to get her life back in order, yet she slides right back into the world of destruction.  Even after many attempts of rehab, hospitals, jail and whatnot, she is placed right back into the same environment and life goes right back to what she wants to avoid. You can hear her pain in her writing with her capital letters, her slang, her choice of words and her drawings so I know I was not imagining what I was feeling.  The drawings were terrific and the pictures she drew of herself, the eyes shaded so deep and dark.  The constant repeating of her own image in her drawings, I enjoyed that.  She’s digging herself into a hole yet she doesn’t have the resources to pull herself out. “I’d peel off the label like I was unwrapping a present. I felt secure with alcohol, like I had finally found my home.”  I highlighted so many parts of this book, so many great parts and parts I want to go back and read.  I especially liked the part where Mary Rose listed the different friends you have for the different fights you have with those friends.  Mary Rose coupled this with each substance you were on at the time of the fight (alcohol or a list of drugs M.R. was experienced in).  Being an expert on each different type of drug and an expert drunk, she had this down and it was quite interesting and detailed.   I want to buy this book as some of the pictures didn’t show up on my Kindle version so I know I was missing something and I know I will definitely want to read this again. This is a powerful book with strong language and strong subject matter which should only read by mature readers.

Thank you NetGalley for the copy of this book for me to review.

“It took me to heaven, but left me in hell.”  (Talking about alcohol)

“OhmyGod, you’re right! I AM A FREAK! Guess that makes me different. Okay wait, what if I would take them into my living room and show them the three big, loud machines that “keep me breathing”? Do you have big loud machines in your living room that keep you breathing? No? Didn’t think so. Oh, wait, I’ve got them! How about next time I sweat I show them how salt crystals….” (People call her a freak and sometimes she just wishes she could tell them what her life is really like)