About book Riding In Cars With Boys: Confessions Of A Bad Girl Who Makes Good (2001)
Read this for a class on memoir writing (taught by the wonderful Theo Nestor, author of How to Sleep Alone in a King Size Bed, at the Univ. of Washington in Seattle). Not surprising this book was made into a movie, she noted; it's very cinematic. I agree; if you are interested in writing, it's worth checking out this book for craft/technique. Haven't seen the movie yet, but I agree with other reviewers here that many of the narrator's choices were bad and that explicit introspection is not a preoccupation or strong suit of this book. But this book does work well as a slice of life about a young woman in a small, economically depressed, non-cerebral NE town in the 1960s and how she finally both transcended that environment and came to appreciate some of what was good about it. The author was smart and wanted to escape. She felt suffocated by patriarchy (though that word never appears in the book) and the values of the "hoods" around her. But she was also "boy crazy" by junior high school, hungry for attention and maybe adventure and apparently unable to avoid subconsciously repeating some patterns from the lives of her parents (and grandparents). Getting pregnant and married before high school graduation stopped her, seemed to seal her fate to repeat her mother's life. Things got even worse when her "hood" husband turned out to be a heroin addict. She resented her lot, resented her parents' moralizing, resented the limited world she felt stuck in. At times she resented her son for anchoring her there.Like others I didn't like that she was sometimes reckless or negligent towards her child (dropping acid at a picnic with him playing around her, unwatched by anyone sober) and I agree she seems insufficiently contrite about some of her glaring mistakes, doesn't "own" them explicitly. I also wasn't impressed that she sought solace in drugs and promiscuity. It was the 60s, so she was partly responding to a large cultural influence, plus there was a more particular influence from the non-WASPY culture of the town she was in, but she doesn't reflect on how bad her strategies were for getting what she really wanted, doesn't dwell on her own agency in her behavior. However, some reviewers here say the narrator doesn't progress or develop as a character/human being; that's wrong. They must mean they didn't like how she changed, didn't think she changed enough or weren't paying attention. She makes explicit that she realizes she blamed her son for holding her back when actually, she comes to realize, he may have kept her from going further off the deep end. She clearly loves her son. Much of the opening and ending is about her crying out loud (for crying out loud!) about being separated from him, after expecting to feel euphoric about her freedom once she's at last able to drive him off to college, finally relieved of having to take daily care of him. So her view about her son changes. She raised him to be a feminist, which is also an important generational change (her father and mother were initially against her going to college and doted more on her brother, a favorite because of his gender, because of his "golden penis"). Her son clearly loves her, is aware he's had an unconventional upbringing but validates it as positive---not something she could have done at his age about her own upbringing. So there's lots of change in the book, though it is subtly conveyed (there is even SOME self indictment; she notes on the first page that she took "the path of most resistance," a nice turn of phrase).A men/cars/freedom motif adds literary resonance to the book. The book starts and ends with her driving her son to college. In junior high school she wants boys cruising in cars to pay attention to her. She had her first groping, proto-sexual experience in a car with a boy at 14, then suffers a damaged reputation in school after the boy gossiped about her as "easy." Her father drove her to the train station as a gesture of love. And her broken down VW bug, which she names "Cupcake," is her means of liberation---she drives it to community college, later to Wesleyan and then off to NY, often with her son along for the ride but also, significantly, sometimes alone. Also, Cupcake gets stolen twice by some boy trying to escape from a juvenile detention facility to go see his girlfriend, who had been impregnated too young, too. This motif about men, cars, love and yearning for freedom (with the risk of mistakes looming) is I think a really nice touch. It "works."Personally I found her lack of chagrin about being on public assistance for years off-putting, but she DID take initiative and worked her way through a community college then a liberal arts school on scholarship, then struck out for New York and carved out a modest life for herself there. By the end she comes to appreciate her parents' love, not just resent their attempts to control her. She's realized her son was the best thing that ever happened to her in many ways, and she knows she's made lots of mistakes.So she does change, and she confesses many sins, and writes beautifully about it all.
There's this point in Beverly Donofrio's autobiographical Riding in Cars with Boys where she has led a full delinquent life of drinking and doping in the 60s, all done under pretext of being a minor, who gets herself pregnant at seventeen, marries the child's heroin addict father who ends up fleeing from responsibility to Nam, divorced at nineteen, gets caught with drug possession when her roommate uses her house as a marijuana storage facility, she goes on welfare, her parents throw their hands up for the millionth time and threaten to take custody of her child, who she often complained had stunted her growth, and she ends up all alone in the world (a sprawling, dangerous 1970's New York City) with her three-and-a-half-year-old son, part of the opposition, her only sole companion flesh and blood and yet a spy from that wretched human race of men, and clumsily they discombobulate together, she tells him where babies come from (like exactly, there's no need to hide the truth from him like her parents did to her, she thinks) and she begins to realize that maybe she shouldn't be having sex a room over where he can hear, and this truly wonderful dynamic explodes and fulfills every previous nuance of her own professed "hippie" (and might I add, hilarious; she did after all put her son's foot in her mouth after he was born just to see if it would fit) ignorance was just a buildup to these series of moments all along, and she's forced to either grow up or continue leading a life she no longer was satisfied with.Later, as Bev attends college (to become a writer) and her son is a little older: Jason was twelve and disapproved. One night we were walking to the movies and out of the blue he comes up with. "What's a call girl?" "A high-class whore you make a date with on the phone." "That's what you are." "What?" "Men call you on the phone and ask you to take your clothes off, don't they?"Jason ruined my life or he enriched it. My choice.
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Bittersweet story unflinchingly told with utter honesty. This should actually be read by anyone studying the 60s. Working class family´s message is Girls Don´t Go to College. Friends talk of marriage. Boys go off to war. Girl pouts but then the Sixties and their Do What You Want To Do message hits. This means She Can Go To College! But, Girl gets pregnant. Much social commentary in this Girl Meets Boy/Boy Does Drugs/Girl Raises Son tale. Loved it.
—Susan Ortega
I adored the movie adaptation of this book, it made me roar with laughter and even made me cry which is a rarity.However, Riding In Cars With Boys by Beverly Donofrio just didn't live up to my expectations.In this memoir we follow Bev's journey as she becomes a teen mum and wife. She battles with her hate as she sees everyone around her moving on while she is stuck dreaming of having an education and a better life; without her son. I feel a connection to Beverley, I'm not exactly sure why but I related to her thought processes entirely and sympathized with how her life turned out. I've seen a lot of reviews that hate on Beverly's behaviour while she and her son were growing up because the drugs and sex clearly affected her son in a negative way. However, I just found it incredibly real and honest as well as eye opening because it just goes to show life is not perfect. I love that Beverly is described as a hippie and we get to see more of what she stood for as a woman. I liked that she wanted to be independent without a husband because at the time this was mostly unheard of. We see more about her life in College while looking after a baby and her struggle with balancing all her responsibility. I'm suprised that Ray, Beverly's ex husband did not have a bigger part in this memoir and I do think that the screen adaptation showed his story in a much more shocking way.Compared to the movie the book is quite different but not necessarily in a good way. The story isn't as structured and there is a lot of abrupt time jumps.When Beverly gives birth the details are written quite graphically, I'll definitely be reading this again if my future partner ever tries to convince me to have children just so I know to say no, haha. However, while Beverly is in hospital I didn't find it very funny which was a let down compared to the movie as I remember having to pause it just because I was laughing so hard.The book just fell a little flat for me and we don't really get much of a connection or feel for the characters like I hoped. The ending was a let down because there isn't much closure and I didn't find it as touching as the film adaptation.Don't get me wrong this is a outstanding story with such a poignant message but I didn't enjoy it quite as much as the film.
—Amy
I read this book because I was a so-so fan of the film. I wanted to read the actual memoir.Bev is an self-centered woman who regrets the conception, birth, and life of her son. She only cares about herself, and there were moments where she seemed to glory in her child's misery. The scene that really stands out to me is when she tells Jason that Ray is gone and she seems to say how they'll be without money or food over and over until Jason breaks down, scared and unhappy. What sort of mother does that?Her heavy drug use, her use of men while having a young child in the house, the drinking, everything led me to asking why did no one take her child from her? She was a danger to herself and her son, though she didn't care. Someone should have. Though I hope that Jason grew up to be a lovely, well-adjusted young man, I can't help but think he'll carry scars that will bleed over into his own child rearing.I read the book quickly, but I was angry throughout most of it. Bev's behavior, her acidic and unloving thoughts of her child, and her unjustified hatred/resentment of her family just blew me away. Most of what I read, I couldn't believe anyone would openly admit to, and I felt sorry for Jason. This book immediately went into my 'resell on Amazon' pile once I finished it, and I cannot recommend it to anyone. It's just an awful, self-indulgent vomit session of a selfish, narrow-sighted woman.
—S.L.
