Janice Erlbaum

A columnist describes her troubled adolescence as a runaway in New York City, explaining why she exchanged her home for a life on the city streets; her struggle to balance school, the shelter system, and the temptations of the street; and her eventual successful battle to rescue herself from street life. Reprint. 10,000 first printing.

A Halfway Homeless Memoir

Girlbomb

Jeannette Ordas

I liked this memoir, but it also left me wanting more. I had a lot of questions by the end of the book and none of them were really answered.

Rachel

The description of Girlbomb is a memoir of Janice Erlbaum as a 15 year old who in the 1980′s left home and went to a shelter. The book is so much more than that. It reads like story and held me captive throughout the book, the author did a great job at capturing her life. Janice leaves home because her mom keeps taking back her abusive husband, Janice’s stepfather, and she’s had enough. She goes through hell at a shelter and group home, acknowledges her white privilege and how it benefits her in the situation, but it is still hard on her. That was all I was expecting from the book but it continued on past that, it goes into Janice’s need for attention and love, how she is an outcast within her group of friends and tries to feel a void with drugs and men. The detail written describing the scenes and how Janice felt is heartbreaking and uncomfortable at times. There are times when I felt annoyed with Janice for making stuff harder for herself but she is just trying to cope with her messed up life and it is clear she sees a pattern. Her mom was the same way and she is becoming what she hates. The book ended well, not making it seem like she learned her lesson and was turning over a new leaf, just that she realizes what she is doing and wants to change but it takes time and baby steps and will see what happens. 

I would of liked if the author gave an update on her life instead of ending it where she did. The book was written in 2007 and the time described is in the 1980s so it’s not like she doesn’t know how she turned out, if she kept on the same path or managed to change. Oh well. Great book.

Girlbomb A Halfway Homeless Memoir

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