Real.

Not my kind of book, but the kids who want to read about how terrible someone else's life was will eat this one up. ( )

A List of Things that Didn't Kill Me is an eye-opening memoir about growing up with an abusive parent, and it's also a story of getting through a rough life, of determination to keep going. Schmidt's story can be brutal at times, but it doesn't read as a series of tragedies. It's admirable how he gets through it and tells his story after the fact, portraying his relationship with his dad and his life as very complex and many-sided.

I like Schmidt's writing style in his prose, but the chapter structure often threw me off, because it jumped around chronologically a bit; he wrote thematically and grouped events rather than times. He doesn't tone down events for the readers, even though this is categorized as YA, which is good, and I hope it helps kids in situations similar to his feel less alone. ( )

Jason's childhood was a wild ride of dysfunction: lack of stability, drug and alchohol use all around him, an emotionally unstable, drug-addicted father who later comes down with AIDS. Unflinchingly honest and sometimes graphically horrifying, the fact that Jason kept some sense of his wits about him that he could write about it as an adult is fairly miraculous. ( )

It's been over a month and I'm still periodically thinking about this book. Jason's memoir tells what it was like growing up with a broke, gay dad who ended up being HIV in the 70s. It's amazing that the author was able to survive growing up this way and I think it's a testament to what we can endure. I think memoirs like this are important b/c they show teens who are growing up in fucked up situations that others have and that they've survived. I do wish it had provided a bit more background on where the author is now for that reason but still imporant without it. ( )