A Nice Girl Like Me
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Review
'This is a beautiful and brutally honest book. A young woman's battle with alcohol addiction and struggle for meaning, it's as brave and fresh as when it was first written. That perpetual, perplexing question echoes across the decades. What does it mean to be a woman? And how, exactly, do we go about being one?' --Sally Brampton
Review
'A NICE GIRL LIKE ME is the most unflinching personal account of addiction that I have read. First published in 1984 it remains ageless, without an ounce of self pity about it. It serves as both autobiography, and documentary history of the women's liberation movement in the 1970's. Rosie Boycott is generous, brave, and hugely compelling'
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
A night nurse at the clinic Rosie Boycott attended described her as "one of the most honest alcoholics I know" and this emotional honesty is the keynote of this autobiographical book. Rosie is very much a straightforward, likeable child of her time from what might be termed an insecure middle-class background. The story starts off in 1981 as Rosie comes off yet another bender to confront her alcoholism in an upmarket London clinic. The book then traces her experience at the clinic while using alternate chapters to explore her adventurous life from 1951 to 1981 with the 1970s being the principal focus. It's a common narrative structure and works well here. Both the clinic experience and and her life story are recounted with the same stark and fearless emotional honesty, and the characters of both stories are portrayed vividly with a marked absence of any judgmental tendency. This is much more than a book about confronting alcoholism. It's also a story of bohemian life during the 70s: a life characterised by experimentation with psychedelic and other drugs, an 'underground' press, nascent feminism and a fascination with gurus and alternative lifestyles. In this pre-mass tourism world, Rosie beats the hippy trail to India, Nepal, Laos and Thailand and experiences sisterhood in a Thai jail. She also samples ex-pat life in a 2-year Middle East contract and all her reports carry the freshness of her honesty and lack of pretentiousness. She recounts well some of the casualties of the decade: one dying of cancer in an Indian ashram, an ex-partner degenerating into paranoia and hacking his wife to death, although cameo appearances of well-known figures of the time (such as Kate Millett or Allen Ginsberg) are uninteresting and lacking in telling detail. Nonetheless, as one might expect from a former editor of Spare Rib, there are one or two interesting reflections on gender issues (although there's nothing particularly analytical, in any area). This book thus explores the life of a female alcoholic while also giving the reader an insider account of life close to the edge in the 70s, and it's very readable.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
A recovering alcoholic myself I read voraciously around the subject of alcoholism and attacked this book with vigour. Rosie is a remarkable lady: inquisitive, adventurous, hedonistic and perhaps a little insane. As one who travelled to Istanbul as a student in 1982 to see how long it would take to be offered drugs, I identify with her hugely. I found myself hating her for some of the things she did to people, to herself, before realising that my chronology is in many ways similar. I had to laugh at myself when I realised how alike we are. There were some opinions expressed, some angles on AA that I disagreed with entirely, but that made it all the better for me. I was grateful for the 'update' at the end. It put to rest some of the anxieties I had in earlier pages. Rosie knows what every recovering alcoholic does - that it is a disease which cuts across class. There are probably more alcoholics minding children and 'coping' with high powered careers then there are on park benches. I heartily recommend this book; it lays bare the thoughts and feelings many of us have, but dare not voice, let alone act upon.
3 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
This book is not particularly well written, it is sometimes awkward and lumbering and in places downright boring. I do like Rosie Boycott, at least the person she is now. Tell me how many people can actually afford to book into a private clinic to get help - a tiny minority. I consider myself left-leaning, well I read The Guardian everyday! But there is far too much stuff about Spare Rib, water beds, sex - I'm not that interested. Nevertheless, I am at fault for failing to realise the book is a memoir as much as a book about a struggle with addiction and I am simply not interested in most of the memories. This is not a book that would be of any use to an ordinary person who just happens to be an alcoholic. It is, to my mind at any rate, too far removed from ordinary lives. I agree that people from all walks of life fall foul of alcoholism but this book will only be of interest to a small number. Far too esoteric to reach further.
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