Audiobook8 hours
The Girl Factory: A Memoir
Written by Karen Dietrich
Narrated by Cassandra Campbell
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
()
About this audiobook
It's 1985 in a small factory town near Pittsburgh. Eight-year-old Karen's parents are lifelong workers at the Anchor Glass plant, where one Saturday, an employee goes on a shooting spree, killing four supervisors, then himself. This event splits the young girl's life open, and like her mother, she begins to seek comfort in obsessive rituals and superstitions.
This beautifully evocative memoir chronicles the next fourteen years, as Karen moves through girlhood, adolescence, and young adulthood. It illuminates small-town factory life; explores a complicated mother-daughter bond; thoughtfully unfolds a smart but insecure girl's coming of age; achingly recounts her attempts to use sex to fit in; and ultimately uncovers the buried secret from her childhood-a medical file with an unbearable report.
The Girl Factory deftly travels the intersections of memory and origin. Karen's body remembers details her mind has tried to control. As the young woman mines her interior landscape for answers, certain questions persist. Where does memory live-in the body or the mind? And can you rewrite the story of your past?
This beautifully evocative memoir chronicles the next fourteen years, as Karen moves through girlhood, adolescence, and young adulthood. It illuminates small-town factory life; explores a complicated mother-daughter bond; thoughtfully unfolds a smart but insecure girl's coming of age; achingly recounts her attempts to use sex to fit in; and ultimately uncovers the buried secret from her childhood-a medical file with an unbearable report.
The Girl Factory deftly travels the intersections of memory and origin. Karen's body remembers details her mind has tried to control. As the young woman mines her interior landscape for answers, certain questions persist. Where does memory live-in the body or the mind? And can you rewrite the story of your past?
Related to The Girl Factory
Related audiobooks
Casebook: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Home Place: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Vera Violet: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Shine Shine Shine: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Grown Ups: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Strong West Wind: A Memoir Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Across The Deep Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKindred Spirits Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Another Place You've Never Been Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5In Wilderness Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Emperor of Shoes Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Above the East China Sea Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rutting Season: Stories Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Stranger on the Ice Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5May Cause Drowsiness and Blurred Vision: The Side Effects of Bravery Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThomas Murphy: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Small Blessings: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Light Years: A Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Bad Ideas: A Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Dragon Keeper Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ruby River Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Stay Where I Can See You: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Children of the Salt Road Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Heart Beats in Secret Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5There Are No Rules For This: A Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Myth of Surrender: A Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Cotton Blossom Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Look Both Ways Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5News from Heaven: The Bakerton Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Shooting Out the Lights: A Memoir Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5
Biography & Memoir For You
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Fairy Tale Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Bell Jar Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Leave the World Behind: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A Child Called It: One Child's Courage to Survive Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Local Woman Missing Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Overstory Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Divine Rivals: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5And Then There Were None Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5From Blood and Ash Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The House in the Cerulean Sea Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sorry I'm Late, I Didn't Want to Come: One Introvert's Year of Saying Yes Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hang the Moon: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Dutch House: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Twisted Love Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ivy League Counterfeiter Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How Y'all Doing?: Misadventures and Mischief from a Life Well Lived Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Year of Magical Thinking Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Paris Apartment: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nothing to See Here Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Later Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World--and Why Things Are Better Than You Think Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In Five Years: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Dead Zone Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5If He Had Been with Me Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of September 11, 2001 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Reviews for The Girl Factory
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
4 ratings1 review
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I received an ARC of The Girl Factory through the Goodreads Giveaways program. The Girl Factory details the life of Karen Dietrich as she maneuvers her way through various friendships and a complicated mother daughter bond. Although, Karen is a precocious child and highly intelligent, she struggles after elementary school with building and maintaining relationships. Karen also seems to look for validation from others and seeks out friends who are at times a bad influence. When a long buried family secret is revealed in chapter 25 all the pieces come together and the reader can see the cause of much of the author's behavior. The Girl Factory was a dark and powerfully written memoir which reveals several painful and intimate events in her life. I enjoyed reading the book and applaud the courage it took to share her story. Well done!