November 12, 2007
In winter 2004, 34-year-old Erlbaum (Girlbomb
) volunteered at the shelter where she herself had lived as a teenager. Dubbed “The Bead Lady” by the residents, she hefted a large, rattling bag of beadworking supplies to the cafeteria once a week, hoping to reach out to a younger version of herself over jewelry-making sessions—to “believe in them and listen to them,” as her volunteer-orientation videotape had instructed. When she met Samantha, a charismatic 19-year-old addict with an unyielding resilience in spite of a horrific childhood, Erlbaum knew she’d found a favorite. Though Sam had been on the streets since age 12, she was well read and quite gifted as a writer—a prodigy, it seemed. The two quickly developed a friendship, which deepened over the next several months as Erlbaum comforted Sam through health problems, abuse flashbacks and rehab, promising her a trip to Disney World if she stayed sober. Erlbaum was determined to save Sam and even offered to become her legal guardian. Erlbaum realized that, at times, details in Sam’s backstory didn’t add up (she was a skilled classical pianist), but these incongruities raised only the occasional, short-lived suspicion. Finally, Erlbaum realized Sam had been lying to her all along (she actually came from a sold middle-class suburb and hadn’t had the childhood she described), snookering her out of her time, attention and affection for a year. Erlbaum’s narrative begins promisingly, her savior fantasies and insecurities rendered with honesty and self-effacing good humor. However, her conclusions fall flat, missing opportunities to ponder larger issues at work in the story and opting instead for a mere cautionary tale.
March 1, 2008
Adult/High School-Twenty years after spending time in a New York City shelter, Erlbaum returned as a volunteer, bearing beads for crafts therapy and a desire to make a difference. Breaking the rule against playing favorites among residents, she found a kindred spirit in tragic, brilliant Sam. Erlbaum giddily forged a connection with the teen, discussing books and philosophy; feeling outrage at her tales of parental abuse, drugs, and life on the streets; and acting as an advocate to get Sam the help she needed. During Sams multiple stays in the hospital for increasingly serious infections, Erlbaum encouraged her to focus on getting well and into rehab, spending hours next to hospital beds and on the phone, taking time away from work and her partner. An AIDS diagnosis intensified the strong feelings Erlbaum was developing for Sam and set the ball of discovery rolling as she realized that the girl, who had almost become an adopted daughter, was not what she seemed. Throughout, Erlbaum is honest about her own motives; she mocks her own selfish drive to be important. The chatty narrative, heartrending and funny, is full of dialogue reconstructed from journals; the writing is unobtrusively good and compulsively readable. Teens who enjoy gritty reality like James Freys "A Million Little Pieces" (Doubleday, 2003) or the twisted humor of Augusten Burroughss "Running with Scissors" (St. Martins, 2002) will race through this one and come back for Erlbaums chronicle of her own unstable past, "Girlbomb: A Halfway Homeless Memoir" (Villard, 2006)."Jenny Gasset, Orange County Public Library, CA"
Copyright 2008 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
April 1, 2008
In her highly acclaimed "Girlbomb: A Halfway Homeless Memoir", Erlbaum detailed her experiences as a troubled adolescent who had spent more than a year in New York City's shelter system in the 1980s. In this follow-up memoir, she is now a confident and successful 34-year-old writer who's gotten her act together, complete with a committed romantic relationship. Wanting to give something back, she decides to volunteer at the same homeless shelter at which she herself had stayed 20 years earlier. There, she meets "Sam," a brilliant but troubled 19-year-old who reminds her of her earlier self. Despite admonitions from the professionals running the shelter, Erlbaum becomes more and more deeply involved in Sam's life. Just as she is about to become Sam's legal guardian, the story takes a sharp turn for the worse, revealing new and deeper problems of which no one had been aware. This compelling and fast-paced memoir reads like a novel while providing an inside look at American social problems. Recommended for public libraries and a possible purchase for academic libraries. [Visit the author online at www.girlbomb.com.Ed.]Alison M. Lewis, Drexel Univ., Philadelphia
Copyright 2008 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
Starred review from December 15, 2007
Erlbaums convulsive, extensively self-medicated teen years, during which she spent time in a New York homeless shelter, were chronicled in Girlbomb (2006). At 34, a mostly settled Erlbaum returned to the same shelter as an eager volunteer, plunging almost immediately into an intense one-on-one relationship. At first, the progress made by a precocious 19-year-old ex-junkie seems to predict a clich'd do-gooder fantasy: Thered be this montage of her struggling through rehab, . . . and the two of us would go off together laughing in the sunshine. Erlbaums very self-awareness about such clich's, of course, suggests a different outcome. First, Sam gets very, very sick; then the narrative swerves yet again from a seemingly inevitable course, forcing Erlbaum into the role of thriller-style sleuth. Although the pace lags in the middle, whirling readers in a too-lengthy vortex of crises, so gripping are the final chapters that its easy to forget that in real life, unlike in Hollywood thrillers, tidy closure rarely occurs. In fact, because the events described are so recent, spanning 20045 and beyond, readers wont be able to resist wondering if the stocktaking Erlbaum performs at books end might be a bit premature. The trade-off is the sharpness of details culled from recent memory and freshly scribbled journals, especially about caregivers contradictory boo-hoo, hooray tug-of-war between fury and forgiveness, resentment and love, bereavement and relief.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)