Victoria T. (justicepirate) reviewed How to Catch a Frog: And Other Stories of Family, Love, Dysfunction, Survival, and DIY on + 350 more book reviews
I have used fabric that Heather Ross designed for quilts I have made. She has really beautiful illustrations as well. When I saw this book's title, I was intrigued because I have caught dozens of frogs and toads and have owned a lot of them. When I saw that it had to do with family, love, and dysfunction, I was all in. Those are things I can relate to.
Heather's story was fascinating at times and other times very sad. She grew up moving between homes in Vermont, Mexico, Virginia, California, and New York between her mom and dad (who were divorced shortly into Heather and her twin sister's years) and grandparents.
What I liked about this book is that it painted a descriptive and lovely picture of her life. While some of her upbringing was a bit romantic between the idea of her walking and exploring as a young girl anywhere she wanted to in Vermont, something I really wish I was able to do in my own upbringing, it was filled with brokenness and heartache. This is pretty much like Laura Ingalls Wilder's story but with a very broken home life during the 1970s and 1980s. Her parents even built their first home together and she lived in a one roomed old school house for a few years with an additional bedroom for her sister and her attached. They had a wood burning stove and everything, but she explains how hard it was living in this way in a modern time with a mother who let her children starve most days while she would go out and get drunk.
Heather Ross also goes through a few of her key relationships with her boyfriends such as a drug dealer who had a small home with no door on it and a bathtub in the woods as well as an outhouse with no door on it. It was pretty entertaining to read through some of these stories.
Ultimately this is about a woman coming to terms with her life and accepting what home looks like for her today.
Heather's story was fascinating at times and other times very sad. She grew up moving between homes in Vermont, Mexico, Virginia, California, and New York between her mom and dad (who were divorced shortly into Heather and her twin sister's years) and grandparents.
What I liked about this book is that it painted a descriptive and lovely picture of her life. While some of her upbringing was a bit romantic between the idea of her walking and exploring as a young girl anywhere she wanted to in Vermont, something I really wish I was able to do in my own upbringing, it was filled with brokenness and heartache. This is pretty much like Laura Ingalls Wilder's story but with a very broken home life during the 1970s and 1980s. Her parents even built their first home together and she lived in a one roomed old school house for a few years with an additional bedroom for her sister and her attached. They had a wood burning stove and everything, but she explains how hard it was living in this way in a modern time with a mother who let her children starve most days while she would go out and get drunk.
Heather Ross also goes through a few of her key relationships with her boyfriends such as a drug dealer who had a small home with no door on it and a bathtub in the woods as well as an outhouse with no door on it. It was pretty entertaining to read through some of these stories.
Ultimately this is about a woman coming to terms with her life and accepting what home looks like for her today.
