Without a Map: A Memoir by Meredith Hall
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Book Reviews of Without a Map: A Memoir
Book Review: without a map
Summary: 5 Stars
without a Map, captured how some women live their lives wondering every secound what happened to their child which was given up for adoptions.Book Review: great book
Summary: 5 Stars
Book arrived timely, in great condition. It's one of the best books I've ever read.Book Review: An Indictment of Those Times
Summary: 4 Stars
Having read some of the reviews, I get the sense that those born of later generations or those who led sheltered lives have difficulty conceptualizing what it was like for a young girl who found herself in Meredith Hall's circumstances. One review even stated that abortion was not an option. Actually, it was -- a dangerous, often fatal, backstreet option performed mostly by unethical practioners under unsanitary conditions.
Hall's parents were like many of those times but fortunately not all. Some, rather than shun their child and cast her out, tried to help her, but all so secretly, making arrangements for her to go away for "a long visit," or "to care for a sick relative," in a far away town.
Faced with shame and censure by the community, many would react as Hall's did with devastating affects on the girl. Some of the reviewers could not understand why Hall could not just, as we say now, suck it up and move on. I tended to feel that way myself at times while reading the book, but I do understand that not everyone is able to do that. She had lost the love of her parents, and lost the child as well. Those are two heavy losses right there. She also lost the only way of life she had known.
Some reviewers felt that Hall lacked feeling in her telling of her story, not expressing warm emotion in other relationships in her life. I believe rather that the trauma of loss caused feeling to be bottled deeply within, beyond her reach for many years. Perhaps that was what the killing of the chickens was about. I found that to be a highly difficult chapter to read, but perhaps it was an important one. Killing of living creatures with names, seemed to represent the killing of her spirit, all her girlhood hopes and dreams that she had experienced. Laying out their bodies was like laying out all the losses. It was after that that Hall seemed able to finally move on.
People react differently to different experiences. Another book that readers of Without a Map might enjoy is Stolen Fields: A Story of Eminent Domain and the Death of the American Dream a memoir that traces the effects of a catastrophic event through several generations of a family.
Book Review: Without a Map
Summary: 4 Stars
Without a Map: A Memoir Meredith Hall is so young and so unprepared for motherhood at the age of sixteen. In 1965 pregnancy out of marriage was so taboo. No one came to this girl's assistance. Everyone shunned her - parents, school, community and church. She has spent her whole adult life searching and the events of her life are forever influenced by that incident. This book lends iself to discussions of so many topics( relationships, identity, the sixties vs the present, adoption, and survival to name only a few.Book Review: Profound memoir
Summary: 4 Stars
This sad, yet inspirational memoir is moving and beautifully written. You won't be able to put it down and it will make you think long and hard about teenage pregnancy, abortion,and adoption. Meredith Hall tells her dysfunctional story with emotion and a small amount of well deserved self-pity. Some memoirs of late are written with such little emotion despite their sadness that I have felt the author was removed from their own story. Not so with Hall, she lets you feel her profound sadness and range of emotions and you will be so grateful that she included you in this amazing story.