It Was Me All Along by Andie Mitchell
This book had a difficult beginning for me. It shows an ugly side of life; an alcoholic father, a mother who is absent due to working three jobs, and a child being rewarded and comforted with unlimited food when trying to make her happy with little regard to her health. I actually wanted to stop reading the raw and embarrassing account of Andie’s family life when she was little but I made myself keep going.
Andie has a poetic and real way of writing. She made me feel ashamed and embarrassed on behalf of her mother; it makes me wonder about the way she feels being portrayed as she is. This memoir walks the reader through Andie’s weight gain, struggles, life, loss, love, and then weight loss. We follow her through high school, to prom, college, Philadelphia, and Seattle. It is so beautifully written that her words and phrases seem out of place when writing of the dark things in the first half of the book and sometimes it ends up being kind of over the top and ironic in certain situations.
Overall (especially if you can get through/over the beginning) this is a seriously moving memoir. I highly recommend it, especially if you’re a reader of her blog, Can You Stay for Dinner?
4/5 Stars
I received this book from Blogging for Books for review.
