I loved this. This was such a fantastically written book that handles difficult issues so well. Perhaps it was because this was a memoir and not fiction, but often when there are so many different issues in a book (eating disorder, physical abuse, sexual abuse, racism, gambling addiction, etc), I feel like there aren't all handled with the same level of depth and sensitivity. But Laymon weaves them all together so effortlessly. Again, probably because that's how they exist in his life, rather than pulling them together out of thin air.

It was such a hard book to read, just in terms of the subject matter. So heartbreaking at times, but also with an almost perfunctory tone. This is just the way the world is. It hit me really hard emotionally.

Sometimes I struggled a bit with following Laymon's line of thinking or sequence of events or even just understanding exactly what had happened in the past. I'm not entirely certain how much of this was the actual writing vs my personal inability to follow audiobooks as well as physical books, but I don't usually struggle this much. I had to keep taking breaks from this one because I wasn't always able to focus as much as I wanted/needed.

I think my main critique was just that I wish it had been longer. Like everything was discussed well enough, but I feel like it all could have used a bit more time and space, and may have benefitted from that. Like I just wanted to hear more from him. He could have said more.

I highly recommend this book. It was wonderful and so well written. I'll definitely be picking up more from Laymon in the future, but will probably be reading the physical versions because I think he's just a bit dense for me to get through on audiobook. This probably would have been a better review had my reading comprehension been a bit higher.