Subjectively, this book reads similarly the way a person with trauma's mind works constantly being pulled out of the moment and re-living their story. Well done.Īs someone who also has c-PTSD, every chapter made me feel 'seen,' and reminded me to love my own journey.

I immediately read the book straight through and in the morning called my mother to share the what were our community connections with Jolie. While I couldn't directly relate to the punk, queer scenes in Cleveland - I left Ohio to go overseas during the Vietnam War era - I was hooked with Jolie's discussions of poverty, family dysfunction, and working mothers who tried to raise their children out of the Rust Belt despair. What happened with her parents are the stories I heard after I left home and came back for visits. Reading Jolie's memoir was like walking back to the landscape of my childhood memories of throwing rocks in the crick, picking up sacks of animal feed at Wilson's Mill, watching my grandfather sell his Christmas trees, and seeing season after season of the muddy flooded confluence of the Erie Canal and Tinkers Creek. They had homes and businesses where Jolie's childhood was rooted. My grandparents' home was also on Tinkers Creek, and my mother and her many siblings grew up there, too.

Rust Belt Femme by Raechel Anne Jolie is a vivid story of the rural Ohio community of Valley View and the life of families in this poor, farm and working class community. story is both remarkable and utterly ordinary any dreamy kid who grew up broke and weird will see a spark of themselves in this book, which is also why it's so important.-Kim Kelly, The New Republic Biografía del autor But Jolie also stages this achingly personal story against the backdrop of the 1990s and early 2000s, with punk, emo and indie music playing as much of a role in her young life as the working-class environs that she rebelled against - and that she eventually came to grips with.- Jason Heller, NPR Book Concierge's Best Books of 2020 Jolie's voice is at once funny and heart-wrenching, putting every reader who wanted to be part of a scene back into their adolescent shoes.-Alicia Kennedy, Tenderly Quite possibly the first book that's ever made me well up with tears within the first few pages. In her debut memoir, Rust Belt Femme, Raechel Anne Jolie gets it: On the surface, Femme is an exploration of trauma, queer identity and determination in the life of a Midwest kid trapped in a cycle of poverty and tragedy. Kirkus Reviews Coming-of-age memoirs work best when the author is unafraid to dig deep into the context of their childhood, as well as the actual events. Stirring and empathetic It is like listening to a mix tape you love on repeat: I couldn't get enough.-Courtney Brown, Ohioana Quarterly A sharp coming-of-age portrait.