Without a Map: A Memoir
by Meredith Hall
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Book Reviews of Without a Map: A Memoir
Book Review: Where is this story going?
Summary: 2 Stars
I struggled to get through this book. I was really captured at the beginning, especially where I grew up in the same town as Hall's mother and was familiar with the locations in the book. I felt sorry for Hall's situation and couldn't even imagine sustaining such abuse as she did while pregnant. Obviously it messed her up quite a bit. Hall is truly gifted and I enjoyed her diction and tone.
Once the baby was born (or maybe once she broke up with the fisherman), this story kind of fell apart. She talks about events as fragments and doesn't talk about why she does them. I couldn't figure out why she chose walking around Europe over meeting up with her boyfriend as she was supposed to. And then she comes home and boom, she's divorced. I'm sorry, was there a marriage in there that you want to tell us about? The stories seem to skip around and I really lost the point of why we were hearing about them.
I'd love to read more from this author, I just hope she synthesizes it better.
Book Review: A Bit Confusing
Summary: 3 Stars
While I was captivated by Meredith Hall's courageous story, I found her writing style to be quite confusing. She did not tell the story from either the past or the present--but tended to mix the two. It would often take a paragraph or two within each new chapter to figure out where she was in time or space. In addition, I felt so many details that would be interesting to the reader were omitted. For example, how did she get from a beach in Syria back to the United States with little or no money? How did she meet her husband and where did she get married?
I could have never survived the mental or emotional abuse that Ms. Hall suffered, and she is an incredible inspiration. I just wish the story line would have been more linear.
Book Review: Possibly exaggerated
Summary: 3 Stars
I really enjoyed reading this book but have wondered if the author has exaggerated a bit for effect. I lived in a small New Hampshire town close to Hampton at the time the book begins. A girl or two in the town became pregnant and there was definite disapproval, but at the same time kindness. No one was shunned by her friends or anyone else, much less her parents. I find it hard to believe that her parents were so stonily unloving at this critical time of need for support and understanding, not to mention help. Maybe, but I doubt it. Her travels sound suspiciously overdone also. Still, it's an absorbing story and a gripping read.Book Review: It's Ok
Summary: 3 Stars
I thank the author for being so honest with her life's journey. It was compelling and heartfelt at times. However I did not like the mixing of periods of time and stories, she would switch from past to present to past again, one story line to another and then come back to the original story line. I just didn't feel it flowed very well. I've read other books where authors did this but they did it flawlessly and it flowed so well. If it was a work of fiction I would have stopped reading halfway through but since it was a Memoir I wanted to know how Meredith Hall made it through. Ms. Hall has an interesting life story.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.