Katie Hafner

A page-turner that makes you want to know what's next, this book will be enjoyed by young adults and everyone on up who's still reading or listening to books. While it's a memoir, Katie Hafner, who is an experienced writer and journalist, has made this book read like a novel. She starts each chapter with a quote from a well-known person that is a tie-in to what the chapter will be about. But it's Katie's own thought-provoking, insightful and enlightening statements that make this story come show more to life in a meaningful way. She had me completely on page 13 when she wrote "With a transcendent eye, I now see that it's far easier to imagine a future we can invent than to reckon honestly with a painful past." A simple statement with much wisdom which is exactly what takes place between the pages. Each of the three people involved in her memoir has had to deal with dramatic life-changing events, and we see them through her eyes with flashbacks to her own childhood. But it isn't until her only daughter is starting to reach out for her own life, which will take her away from Katie, that Katie finds documents and letters written by both her father and mother during her childhood and discovers how she manipulated her view of her life, and with new clarity and understanding into the lives of her parents and sister she becomes free to live her life with a sense of wholeness. Katie is a well-educated professional, a doting mother and a daughter who has been seeking her mother's love all her life. All the twists and turns of family life will radiate with every reader on some level, and for me personally it was good to know what can go wrong, and right, when adult children and their elderly parents attempt to live together. show less

The Boys by Katie Hafner is one of those books that will stay with you after you finish it, no matter what your initial opinion of it is. For me, that after effect probably bumped my rating up a bit.

Both Ethan and Barb are flawed individuals, though neither in a truly horrible manner. The way the story is structured your feelings about them will likely shift, maybe not 180 degrees but, for Barb at least, significantly. In fact, your feelings about her will likely go from high to low and back show more to something more reasonably neutral.

I think it is disingenuous to complain that a book didn't cover the "points" you wanted it to cover in the manner you wanted them covered. It is certainly a reason to like a book less, but that doesn't make it a flaw in the book, just not what you wanted. Some people want to be told rather than shown, want to be passively presented rather than actively engaged and making the meaning jointly. For those, this might not be simple enough for you. For active, engaged readers, you will have plenty to consider, about current and recent events as well as how we, as humans, are. In fact, because making meaning is such a joint project here, it is ideal for book clubs.

The twist in the book will leave you a little baffled. Not about what happened, it is spelled out pretty clearly by the end, but about how two people could end up where these two did. Funny thing, though, by the end you can understand how these two specific people could have ended up there, even if you still find it hard to imagine this being the outcome for most people. Sorry about being cryptic but much more would begin to get into spoiler territory, and I don't want to go there.

The writing is very good though I do think there were a few places where there could have been a bit more tightening of the prose. But that may well be my preference rather than a legitimate complaint. The reader needs to be as far into the detail as possible and having the perspective change for the Italy section is a wonderful opportunity to both present the twist and show Ethan from the outside instead of the inside.

Highly recommended to readers who can enjoy unusual situations as long as there is some depth to them. This is about our internal defense mechanisms, our interpersonal relationships when confronting difficult times, and where these converge with society dealing with societal difficulties.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley. show less

In the hands of a lesser writer this would have been trite and absurd, but Hafner pulls it off. Briefly, the book centers on Ethan, a gifted programmer who launched a successful startup (not billionaire success, but comfortable life without having to work much success.) He had serious childhood trauma, and perhaps as a result is very introverted. He is lovable but unquestionably a bit odd. When he meets Barb his life changes but his unexamined dormant trauma response takes a complicated turn show more in part 2 of the book and then we either are hateful and give up on him or root for him to find a path to healing. This is a book about giving people space without abandoning them, practicing empathy while also setting boundaries. These are tall orders. Living with someone with serious OCD is so hard and often thankless - it is made worse when that person refuses to seen meaningful help or solutions. (I speak from experience.) The beauty of Barb's and Izzy's response to Ethan, their non-judgmental gaze and their ability to find the beauty in Ethan's skewed perspective, really moved me. This book is not perfect, but it is very good and for me empathy building, and I was absorbed all the way through. So glad I read this. show less

More commonly known for her books about technology, journalist and author Katie Hafner has written a gem of a memoir in Mother Daughter Me. The book starts out as Hafner is moving her elderly mother from San Diego, where she has lived for most of her life, to share a house with her and her young teenage daughter in San Francisco. Sounds like a recipe for disaster, right? Hafner does not gloss over her situation and writes honestly about her life. Her relationship with her mom has never been show more easy, considering she was an alcoholic when she "raised" Katie and her sister, Sarah. The author is also coping with her own life as a single mom, due to the tragedy of her husband's massive heart attack several years earlier. Add to the mix, that Hapner's daughter Zoe, who, as a teenager had her own issues, is still dealing with her father's death and the transition to the new dynamics of the household and sharing her mother's attention-- who is torn between the two of them. Read this wonderful authentic memoir if you like books about interesting family dynamics, particularly, if you are a child of an alcoholic. show less