Memoir Book Reviews

Author Grace Venters speaks her difficult and powerful truth in The Phantom Killer and Her Autistic Son: A Mother’s Journey to Love and Acceptance, a tender, humble, and educational memoir.

Detailing her unique challenges and rewards as the mother of an autistic child, William, her story is unfiltered and fearless, giving voice to what millions of parents feel, but rarely express. For readers experiencing a similar diagnosis within their own family, this narrative will provide hope, as well as practical ideas and strategies for the tough or exhausting times ahead. As Venters leads readers through William’s early years, the […]

Michael Jean DuBois captures nearly two years of his life via phone messages with his sister in Texting Mia, an experimental memoir that grips the heartstrings with unvarnished honesty.

The vicissitudes of fate land the author and his sister, Mia, back in the home of their Haitian parents as they both try to find a new path forward. As expected, long-dormant wounds reopen and old family trauma bubbles to the surface. The author holds little back as he recounts the upbringing with his parents, and the brutality he and his sister experienced at their hands. As they did when […]

Author Michelle Felix pours out a lifetime of powerful confessions in her moving memoir Whole Heart: One Woman’s Incredible and Heartbreaking Journey from Africa to America.

Felix’s initial recounting of her childhood in South Africa is both charming and compelling, as she weaves the painful tale of her humble family with early attempts at self-analysis and deeper understanding. Following an uprooting, however, that family life begins to crack and crumble, and her parents’ marriage falls apart. Readers are pulled into the psyche of the author as a vulnerable young girl trying to navigate the complexity of relationships, parenting, depression, […]

Written by a father for his son, Reflections of an Anxious African American Dad by Eric L. Heard stands out as a contemporary gem. Having grown up in a time and place when segregation still reigned, the perspective of Heard is striking, particularly when overlaid with how race relations are playing out in the streets today, and how current events can still be triggering, for a moving and timely memoir.

Many young people of color in America experience “the talk” in their formative years, not about the opposite sex, but about the dangerous impact of their skin color, and the […]

A memoir of anecdotes and long-spun yarns of life from author Harold Phifer, Surviving Chaos: How I Found Peace at A Beach Bar lives up to its title, overflowing with nearly unbelievable stories of struggle, strife, and survival.

From the war-torn streets of Afghanistan during the largest explosion to ever rock that country, to the cruel power struggles of the author’s matriarchal family, this confessional memoir peels back the ugly curtain of experience to distill wisdom and insight for readers willing to take such a recollective dive. The context of the story – riffing and unloading demons to a stranger […]

Vulnerably sharing the defining moments throughout his tragic and triumphant life, authors Dedrick L. Moone and Haelee P. Moone deliver an inspiring tale with The Unexpected Journey: Fire and Gold. 

With a tone that vacillates between conspiratorial and revelatory, Mr. Moone and his daughter, the co-authors of this book, are compelling storytellers. Detailing a number of unjust and broken systems in America that makes the book hugely relevant, the book displays a keen memory, a suspicious spirit, and a fierce unwillingness to quit, resulting in a raw and gripping memoir. Some of the most powerful sections are the brief, self-reflective […]

Evidence that truth is often more incredible than fiction, Destiny Control by David Garrahan is the spectacular memoir of a dauntless, determined, and extraordinary life.

Spanning eight decades, and capturing the atmosphere and energy of generations past, Garrahan vulnerably reveals the riveting details of his challenging childhood on the streets of New York, an identity-forging adolescence, and a truly exceptional adulthood. From the colloquial buzz of Brooklyn to the ring of Russian curses in the Pennsylvania countryside, Garrahan’s tumultuous life is anything but predictable. Chapter breaks peppered with old photographs give readers an even better sense of the author – […]