tozka reviewed Bootstrapper by Mardi Jo Link
None
3 stars
I think it's easy to judge someone when they seem to be making multiple bad decisions in a row so I don't want to get into all the things I think she did wrong (most of which stemmed from her inability to ask for help) and how she never changed through the course of the memoir. (I'm not sure if she was trying to point out how stupid she was being or if she was trying to brag about making it without help; either way I'm judging her. Silently. Mostly silently.)returnreturnThe tone did kind of change though-- the early chapters had a more witty biting humor to them and the last chapters were much more melancholy. Which makes sense, because of course she'd be sad about losing all the things she lost. But I don't know that I'd say those last chapters "matched" with the first few chapters, as such. …
I think it's easy to judge someone when they seem to be making multiple bad decisions in a row so I don't want to get into all the things I think she did wrong (most of which stemmed from her inability to ask for help) and how she never changed through the course of the memoir. (I'm not sure if she was trying to point out how stupid she was being or if she was trying to brag about making it without help; either way I'm judging her. Silently. Mostly silently.)returnreturnThe tone did kind of change though-- the early chapters had a more witty biting humor to them and the last chapters were much more melancholy. Which makes sense, because of course she'd be sad about losing all the things she lost. But I don't know that I'd say those last chapters "matched" with the first few chapters, as such. I think perhaps the biting humor ones were sold individually as stories to magazines and the melancholy ones came after, so that's the disconnect. returnreturnI'm not sure I'd recommend this for people interested in farming/homesteading OR Michigan-based memoirs, but perhaps if you're interested instead in post-divorce life then this would be a good book for you.returnreturn(Crossposted from my blog: blog.pixietails.club/2025/08/20/read-bootstrapper-link/)