Loved this book! I need to read it again for all the thought provoking statements she makes.

This is my book of the year - honest, compelling, and a tad brutal. It is also the best paean to reading I've encountered. Books can (and do) change her life.

Such a raw and courageous way of talking about her life. My first read from Jeanette Winterson. Certainly not the last.

An eloquent account of growing up adopted into an evangelical, working-class family and surviving, however, wounded, cruel mistreatment as a child. Includes some glimpses of what madness can be like and a suspenseful search for the author's birth mother.

Ultimately I found this book a bit tiresome. I generally like Winterson's writing and her story is an interesting one, but I didn't feel particularly compelled to keep reading this. It was rather an act of will. It would be interesting, perhaps, to read this close in time to Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit--her first novel which is itself largely autobiographical. I read that a long time ago and my recollection is that it was much more sparky. Perhaps fiction is better than truth?

How can a memoir be so intensely heartbreaking and uplifting at the same time? And also poignantly funny and full of extraordinary language? Too much in this book resonates with me – I could read it over and over again. A little more breathtakingly honest than Oranges are not the only Fruit, if you can imagine that, it’s more to the story of adoption, abandonment and embracing of self as only she can tell it.

Witty collage style memoir about learning how to love and be loved while finding compassion for those who couldn't love her and safety in the world of words.

This novel revisits "Oranges are Not the Only Fruit" in a more autobiographical way. Her portrayal of life in working-class northern England is good, as is the impact of being adopted and not knowing how to love or be loved. However, her portrayal of depression seemed a little over the top.

I love love loved Oranges are not the only Fruit - which is supposed to be somewhat autobiographical. So, when I heard that Winterson was publishing her autobiography I was very excited. I found chapters of the book to be very engaging - like when she falls in love for the first time or when she is living out of her car trying to get into Oxford. But other chapters were a bit too cerebral/thought-narrative for my liking. It was also somewhat depressing - her childhood was really quite awful.

wow, what a riveting read from a famous novelist with a harrowing childhood.