Reviews for Then There Was No Mountain: The Parallel Odyssey of a Mother and Daughter through Addiction

The average rating for Then There Was No Mountain: The Parallel Odyssey of a Mother and Daughter through Addiction based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-09-30 00:00:00 Kathleen G Dreusike Read this book in an afternoon. I simply could not tear myself away from this family's unraveling and restoration. Unlike far too many memoir writers, Waterston does not whitewash or romanticize the abrasiveness of addictions. Her writing is bold but never brash, infused with the East Coast landscape of her youth and the West Coast landscape of her choosing. She is a masterful storyteller.

Review # 2 was written on 2009-12-29 00:00:00 Alex Gerving Have you ever gone all the way to the back of Sunset magazine, past the pages of pages of "Must Take" vacations and patio makeovers that cost more than I made in my first ten years of teaching--only to reach the back page ads and realize there is irony in paradise. Because this entire magazine, or at least the full features section, is bank-rolled by ads for wilderness camps where people who's been turning the 1500 unused feet of their cabin into an artist's loft or whipping up a bouillabaise of geoduck and crawdads can send their kids to dry out and get clean. Anyway, a long preface to say that my friend Ellie is NOT one of those people, but she did have a daughter who was drinking herself to death and she did take her against a will to a ranch in Montana where she left her for over a year with a woman named Fay who could cure anyone of anything. THEN she wrote about it and THEN she had the courage to publish it. Kudos for Ellie. It's a beautiful book and a must-read for anyone brave or foolish enough to consider parenting a teenager in the 21st century.