2011: Book 36

Don't Wake Me at Doyles: The Remarkable Memoir of an Ordinary Irish Woman and Her Extraordinary Life by Maura Murphy

400 pages

Completed 4/11/11

The tales of Maura Murphy cannot be ignored; a mother of nine, with lives in both England and Ireland, with stories of love and of woe, this memoir is poignantly terrific. Stricken by poverty and illness throughout her life, Murphy is then dealt the final blow; a cancer diagnosis. With journal entries of each of her children and her husband intermitently making appearances, the reader is given a glimpse into the reasons, and effects of Maura being Maura.

A full-life memoir, the kind I rarely read, this one was worth it. And it was okay to be a bit perturbed by Murphy and her actions; she makes no exscuses, and is fine in - and with - her ways. As she ages, her decisions become clearer, and one cannot help but be on her side.

2011: Book 22

Everything is Wrong with Me: A Memoir of an American Childhood Gone, Well, Wrong by Jason Mulgrew


240 pages

Completed 3/11/11

Honestly, I picked up this memoir because of my and the author's shared last name. I mean, come on, it's not a often seen last name. I was neither impressed nor disappointed with this tale from dry-humored Mulgrew. Stories of his Irish - read, drunk - family growing up in Philadelphia, his parents' torrid relationship, and his own poor choices, the memoir is relatively amusing, if not offering much of a story.

Maybe it's because I enjoy more dramatic and devastating memoirs, but this one was a bit uneventful. The dozens of occasionally humorous footnotes were annoying at best, and the pictures poorly captioned - I legitimately had no idea what they were portraying most of the time. Eh, should've skipped this one.