Particularize Books In Favor Of This Boy's Life
| Original Title: | This Boy's Life: A Memoir |
| ISBN: | 0802136680 (ISBN13: 9780802136688) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Literary Awards: | Ambassador Book Award for Autobiography (1990), Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Biography (1989), National Book Critics Circle Award Nominee for Biography/Autobiography (1989) |
Tobias Wolff
Paperback | Pages: 304 pages Rating: 3.98 | 24510 Users | 1436 Reviews
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| Title | : | This Boy's Life |
| Author | : | Tobias Wolff |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Anniversary Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 304 pages |
| Published | : | January 20th 2000 by Grove Press (first published 1989) |
| Categories | : | Autobiography. Memoir. Nonfiction |
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This unforgettable memoir, by one of our most gifted writers, introduces us to the young Toby Wolff, by turns tough and vulnerable, crafty and bumbling, and ultimately winning. Separated by divorce from his father and brother, Toby and his mother are constantly on the move, yet they develop an extraordinarily close, almost telepathic relationship. As Toby fights for identity and self-respect against the unrelenting hostility of a new stepfather, his experiences are at once poignant and comical, and Wolff does a masterful job of re-creating the frustrations and cruelties of adolescence. His various schemes - running away to Alaska, forging checks, and stealing cars - lead eventually to an act of outrageous self-invention that releases him into a new world of possibility.Rating Based On Books This Boy's Life
Ratings: 3.98 From 24510 Users | 1436 ReviewsAssess Based On Books This Boy's Life
Exquisitely written, desperately honest memoir that was incredibly difficult to read. I had to keep walking away, but I kept coming back for more. I am coming away from this wanting to read every word Wolff ever wrote, right away. He's so penetratingly analytical, so able to distance himself from his adolescent pretensions without disavowing the, so incisive and so true. He broke my heart, over and over and over. The prose is knife-like, crystalline and icy. I recommend it.This memoir would be overwhelmingly sad for me, had I not already read Old School by the same author and know that he becomes a successful author and teacher of literature at Stanford. But if you didnt know that this child redeems himself in the end, this would be sad, a sad tale indeed. Tobias parents divorced when he was a young boy, and his mother set off looking for a better life, leaving her oldest son with her ex-husband. In 1955 it was hard for a single mother, and life treated Tobias
This Boy's Life is a memoir about the author Tobias Wolff. Although, for most of this book he picks a different name-- Jack. I immediately got swept up in the life of Jack and his mother as they leave place after place, boyfriend after boyfriend. We start as they leave from Florida to head to Utah and we quickly understand the instability of Jack's life. Eventually she re-marries a crazy man named Dwight, who constantly is on some power trip and takes control of Jack's life. That is, until he
Wolffs memoir of his nomadic, fatherless childhood searching for an identity and a future is hypnotically engaging. In search of wealth and the right man, his divorced mother moved Toby, who renamed himself Jack, from Florida to Utah to Washington State, where she married Dwight, definitely the wrong man, especially for Jack. "I was bound to accept as my home a place I did not feel at home in, he writes, and to take as my father a man who was offended by my existence and would never stop
I can't very well articulate why this book elicited a 5 star response from me, which is why I enjoyed it so much. Despite not being able to put my finger on it, I found myself wanting to get back to it all the time.Not a reaction I typically have to memoirs by established authors.He spoke in away that maintained the feel of adolescence without condescending hindsight or grandiose naivety. The writing seems so simple and concise and yet there were numerous times when I had to fight my urge to
The opening acknowledgements had me thinking this would be a breezy comic memoir ("My first stepfather used to say that what I didnt know would fill a book. Well, here it is.") It's very funny and moves well throughout but to say it's breezy is a gross mischaracterization.The book takes its title from an adaptation of the official magazine of the Boy Scouts of America (Boy's Life), one of the seemingly few positive influences on the author when he was younger (i.e. the Scouts, not the magazine).
Nomadic SA Chick's Book ReviewsSummaryToby Wolff was just a boy when he and his mother left Florida for Utah in search of plutonium riches. By this point Toby insists on being called Jack because of his love of the author Jack London. This starts his story of a turbulent childhood, of his mothers cycle of bad boyfriends, and new starts. Once her mother meets and marries Dwight, Jack's life changes, and not for the best.ReviewThis book was outstanding and worthy of all the feels. Wolff is a
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