Reviewed by K.C. Finn for Readers' Favorite

Lost In Beirut: A True Story of Love, Loss and War is a work of non-fiction in the memoir subgenre. It is aimed at mature readers and was penned by author team Ashe Stevens and Magdalena Stevens. The book follows Ashe Stevens, an actor on the rise in early 2000s America, who accepts an invitation to visit his dear friend Danny who is working in Lebanon. The trip takes a turn for the fateful when a conflict breaks out that traps Ashe in a deadly warzone. His only hope is to make it to the Syrian border but dangerous threats are waiting at every stage of the journey.

Memoirs live and die based on the willingness of the author to be vulnerable with their reader, whether they can truly and honestly share a painful part of themselves and allow the world to see it. In this work, we see such a willingness from the dynamic duo of Ashe and Magdalena Stevens, who openly share the painful and profound parts of the story in equal measure and in doing so create an unforgettable journey through danger and spiritual enlightenment. The real-life conflict experienced through the events of the story provides a powerful backdrop to the author's journey of self-discovery as the real world outside the safety of Hollywood prompts them to grow in important and powerful new directions. Overall, Lost In Beirut takes the retelling of a painful experience for the author and uses it as an opportunity to shine a light on some of the more beautiful aspects of the real world, telling a tale as it does so that will inspire readers to go out and get to know themselves better.

Reviewed by Gordon D. Durich for Readers' Favorite

Inside Passage: A Memoir is a story told by an unwitting young gypsy, Keema Waterfield. In this memoir set in Alaska, the author tells of traveling with her free-spirited twenty-something mother on the folk music festival circuit. Dealing with the fallout from her absent pot-dealing pa, she is enmeshed in the past belonging to her mother. Joining the adventures and the misadventures a-la-Anchorage circa 1980 are colorful characters - musicians, drinkers, and more. Waterfield wants a home. Instead, she is forced to endure a lifestyle of unpredictability and insecurity.

Keema Waterfield’s touching and moving memoir Inside Passage is a vivid work. Reminiscent of a Mark Twain tale, with its unique wild setting and colorful real-life characters, I enjoyed it. Her beginnings in an Alaskan trailer gave her material for a riveting storytelling opportunity. And it worked. Growing up in unusual and remote Alaska would not be everyone’s idea of bliss. Having traveled to Alaska, I could visualize the setting, although that was in greater comfort. I love the notion of a freeform existence, and know a fellow artist and writer who travels the country living in his van called “Bertie.” My late mother-in-law Louise lived a similar bohemian lifestyle and the book reminded me of her. It made me wonder what it would be like to live in such an unconventional way. Music played by guitar, cello, and fiddle can almost be heard in the background. It would make for a wonderful audiobook.

Reviewed by Maria Victoria Beltran for Readers' Favorite

Ivy Lodge: A Memoir of Translation and Discovery by multi-linguist and professional translator Linda Murphy Marshall is a unique memoir triggered by the death of the author’s parents. Returning to Ivy Lodge, her childhood home in the Midwest, with her siblings to sort out the family’s belongings, she tries to make sense of her life. Going through the objects in each room brings back childhood experiences that she now translates, looking for signs and subtexts as it relates to her relationship with her family and her life. What follows is an exciting recollection that starts on the day the family moved to Ivy Lodge in 1960. Ivy Lodge is a regal-looking Tudor home with an impressive façade, but its walls hide the dysfunction of a middle-class family that seems perfect from the outside.

Linda Murphy Marshall’s Ivy Lodge: A Memoir of Translation and Discovery is a captivating journey into the author’s past. Written in the first person point of view, it is a deeply personal and honest account that captures the reader’s heart early on. While we accompany the writer in sorting out the contents of Ivy Lodge, we also experience and relive the emotional impacts of the moments as they are recalled. This book is a masterpiece of social observation and self-scrutiny. It is a translation of the snapshots of the author’s life woven together by the debris of a difficult family past. It is about the lessons the author has learned from re-creating her personal story that she now shares with her readers. Highly recommended.

Reviewed by K.C. Finn for Readers' Favorite

Bike Riding in Kabul: The Global Adventures of a Foreign Aid Practitioner is a work of non-fiction in the memoir and cross-cultural writing subgenres. It is best suited to the general adult reading audience and was penned by Jamie Bowman. In this revealing and fascinating work, we discover what it means to work in legal consultancy on an international scale. Attorney Jamie Bowman’s amazing life experiences have taken her to some of the world’s most dangerous and complex countries, from Kosovo to Rwanda and everywhere in between. This memoir offers tales from some of the most unusual cross-cultural experiences, but also a deep insight into the dedicated work Bowman does in putting a stop to corruption and encouraging reform.

Jamie Bowman holds nothing back in this detailed, heartfelt, and emotionally open memoir about the thrilling and rewarding – but also sometimes nerve-wracking – world of consultancy. The work has a really clear focus on bringing together the culture shock elements of an American working abroad with the challenges of being an attorney, and especially a female attorney, in places where sentiments of freedom, justice, and honesty are not as we expect them to be in the western world. I enjoyed the fact that we also saw the softer side of Jamie’s life with her supportive partner and had an insight into how she decompresses to put such stressful situations aside when she returns to ‘normality’ in her life. I would highly recommend Bike Riding in Kabul as a must-read to fans of work-based memoirs, but also those who are fascinated by international legal issues and cross-cultural viewpoints on the modern USA.

Reviewed by Emily-Jane Hills Orford for Readers' Favorite

Being a parent can be challenging at the best of times. Add the additional factor of a special needs child and the workload multiplies substantially, but, then again, so does the love and the inevitable learning curve that goes along with these needs. Jess was born prematurely; her mother suffering from chickenpox at the time. She was born in an era (the 1980s) that continued to foster the notion that a mother, concerned about certain growth patterns in her child, was actually a hypochondriac. Even though the family lived in a thriving metropolis, the medical professionals appeared to be far behind in the growing numbers of diverse special needs children being born every year. This only added to the difficulties: not knowing why Jess wasn’t developing ‘normally,’ and not knowing how to help her, the parents and grandparents were scrambling to research and determine how best to identify and help Jess’s special needs.

Vickie Rubin’s memoir, Raising Jess: A Story of Hope, is a heartwarming, compassionate story about a mother’s (and father’s) enduring love through difficult and challenging times. The author leads the reader on a journey through Jess’s life, right up to the growing concern of the global pandemic and how it might affect this charming, special needs child-turned-young woman. The story unfolds from the mother’s perspective, including journal entries and medical reports that document the growing concerns and research required to help this special child. The language is pure and to the point, pulling the reader right into this one family’s story; for a story about a special needs child is more than a child’s story, it’s a family’s story. The inclusion of a family photo album, pictures taken over the years, adds to the warmth and revealing love that engulf this story. This story will bring tears to the eyes of readers as they are educated and enraptured by one family’s journey with a special needs child. Thanks for sharing your story.

Reviewed by K.C. Finn for Readers' Favorite

You’ll Never Find Us: A Memoir is a work of non-fiction in the autobiography subgenre. It is aimed at mature readers and was penned by author Jeanne Baker Guy. The book follows Jeanne after her ex-husband leaves the country with their children with no intention of returning them to her. When legal avenues fall short in helping her, Jeanne gets caught up in the feminist movement of the 1970s as she discovers her strength and the determination to find her children and take them back. As she prepares herself for what must be done, she reflects on the person she used to be and the marriage that has led to this situation.

Here in these pages lies a heartbreaking tale of a woman molded into an accommodating young girl by the patriarchal society of the 1950s having her world turned upside down by a supreme act of selfishness. Jeanne Baker Guy is unflinchingly honest and open about sharing her pain with the reader. Her prose when describing the emotional and personal journey she undertook to understand herself and develop into someone who will defend themselves against injustice is beautiful. The book manages to impress upon the reader the importance of the feminist movement in helping women like Jeanne understand that they had a voice and were entitled to use it; a societal change that is usually hard to understand unless lived through is exposed and explored here as the effects on Jeanne’s life are made clear. Overall, You’ll Never Find Us is an astonishing and personal tale about the hidden power of refusing to accept mistreatment.

Reviewed by Iza Grek for Readers' Favorite

Blind Pony: As True A Story As I Can Tell by Samantha Hart is a true story about a young girl who runs away from home and sets out to make it on her own. In her memoir, Samantha invites us to join her in her many adventures which take her to some dark places, including a couple of life-threatening situations. Emerging in one piece, she proves she is made of stronger stuff and continues to confront a range of challenges and crosses paths with a number of characters – most of them unsavory. Her relationship with her mother and her father evolves from the abuse suffered at the hands of her grandfather. While Wild Bill, her father, rises to heroic status in her eyes, the road to reconciliation with her mother is a long and arduous one. In Blind Pony, Samantha Hart is met with an uncanny amount of good and bad luck in equal proportion.

The title Blind Pony reflects the theme of ‘not being good enough’ which is why Samantha Hart constantly tries to prove herself. Although a true story, the plot reads like fiction with twists and turns. She has an incredible knack for talking herself out of tricky situations in a way that serves her self-promotion. Her sexual and drug binges make for interesting reading if only to imagine how she can recall the details of her life under this mind-altering condition. Despite her dependence issues, Samantha secures one job after the other and eventually builds a career. The unexpected outcomes keep you hooked, hoping for Sam’s run of bad luck to end. A real page-turner, Blind Pony delivers vivid characters that evoke strong emotions. She writes beautifully, with rich detail and sensuous word pictures. The expression ‘truth is stranger than fiction’ is true in Blind Pony where some of the experiences are almost unbelievable. It’s an easy read and will provide hours of entertainment for the non-fiction enthusiast.

Reviewed by Jamie Michele for Readers' Favorite

Raising, and Losing, My Remarkable Teenage Mother is a non-fiction memoir written by Stacey Aaronson that chronicles the life of a young mother and her daughter, the author being the daughter. Bree finds herself pregnant just after she turns sixteen, and not long after she and her boyfriend had broken up. Despite not being in love, they marry at the strong urging of their parents. It does not last but Stacey has a loving father and Bree is a mother with an 'anything goes' approach to parenting. From the start, Stacey displays old-soul style thinking and is a beacon of responsibility in an unusual mother-daughter relationship. As Stacey grows up, we see her flourish in this role by accomplishing the unthinkable, such as reaching out to a doctor herself when she suspects a mental health issue and helping her mother find a piece of her past. But it is when Stacey's mother is diagnosed with cancer that Stacey realizes there are some problems in their lives that even she cannot fix.

As someone who was also born to a teenage mother, and whose mother died far too young, I was immediately drawn to Raising, and Losing, My Remarkable Teenage Mother by Stacey Aaronson. My mother died from breast cancer at the extremely young age of forty-three, and it was wonderful to read that Stacey had almost a couple more decades with her mother. As a child of the 70s, I enjoyed a lot of the pop-culture references that a Gen X kid would connect with, like a nod to the movie Uncle Buck, and similarities I could relate to like being confused as sisters, and also sustained us with a “diet of compliments for a few decades...” Bree is a woman who has been dealt some serious life blows, the worst being the diagnosis of two illnesses that are almost impossible to reverse independently, and it is hard not to feel like the universe is lashing out at her. This is the part of the storytelling where Stacey shines. Stacey is strong and self-aware, but so is her mother. She chooses her own path by basically forging a new one, and the bond shared between mother and daughter is beautiful. This is a difficult memoir to read because it does have great loss, but the overriding theme of love makes it worth the tears. Have tissues handy. Very highly recommended.

Reviewed by Foluso Falaye for Readers' Favorite

Captain Doug Chamberlain was "living the dream" as a teacher and coach when he got drafted into the United States Army but instead enlisted into the Marine Corp. in the spring of 1965—which led to an experience he would remember and puzzle over for decades. Betrayed by the system he trusted to protect all those who carried out its missions, Chamberlain had to question his role in the US Marine Corp. In his touching and gripping memoir, Chamberlain leaves it to readers to develop their own opinions regarding a controversial event in the Viet Nam War as he tells the story from his perspective. Bury Him: A Memoir of the Viet Nam War takes readers through the heat of the Viet Nam War as American soldiers battle with ambushes, biting insects, snakes, substance abuse, and other serious circumstances.

With the skill of an expert storyteller, the patience of a teacher, and the empathy of a war survivor who experienced loss and death on the battlegrounds of the Viet Nam War, Captain Doug Chamberlain reminds us of the value of peace and caring about every single life. Bury Him contains an intricate collection of information for readers who wish to look into some questionable actions carried out by the US Marine Corp. during the war, including news reports, extracts from different books, and conversations with other concerned individuals. I was fully absorbed by the story as I imagined the joy of reaching home by radio, the fear of the soldiers as they dodged bullets and bombs, the thrill of flying aircraft, and other clearly described scenes. This powerful memoir will remain fresh in my mind for a good while, and the lessons are worth remembering for a lifetime. Don't miss it!

Reviewed by Cecelia Hopkins for Readers' Favorite

Ninety-Nine Fire Hoops by Allison Hong Merrill begins with an abusive childhood in Taiwan, where one of the few rays of hope is cast by Mormon missionaries. Allison’s father disowns her for accepting the faith of The Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints instead of traditional ancestor worship. Allison learns English and achieves a university entrance. However, she delays finishing her degree to marry Cameron and move to America. In America on a student visa, she is destitute when Cameron abandons her and cleans out their joint account. Seeking aid from the church, she transfers to Brigham Young University. After a couple of dating mistakes, she meets the lovely man she believes God has destined for her.

Ninety-Nine Fire Hoops by Allison Hong Merrill is a poignant and compelling memoir. Some of the incidents are challenging, including vivid descriptions of poverty, abuse, and cultural clash. Merrill wrote so persuasively that I was able to identify with her every experience. The viewpoint she presented was uniquely centered in religion and ethnicity yet was universal as the skillful words touched on the basics of human motivation. I finished reading the story with tears in my eyes, as it was one of the most expressive accounts I have ever read. Merrill opened my eyes to the vulnerability of the immigrant experience and impressed me with the young woman’s determination to succeed. I can recommend Ninety-Nine Fire Hoops by Allison Hong Merrill for anyone who enjoys a combination of women's literature and a human interest story.