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meginsanity's review against another edition
4.0
When I was twelve I spent a month in Texas, in the country, in my grandparents’ small house. I have relatives in Florida, and I’ve spent a weekend there every so often. This is the closest I’ve gotten to the South, but Rick Bragg’s book made me feel as though I was really there. Bragg’s skillful storytelling is such that I felt as though I was following along as his mother worked in the fields with him on her back, when she scraped the bottom of the pot dinner had cooked in so that she might have a bite after her sons had eaten their fill, when she walked into the house he had saved up for years to buy her, in cold hard cash, so that if anything happened to him she wouldn’t lose the home.
Bragg has a very lyrical way of writing, and I can see why he won the Pulitzer Prize. A Southerner, through and through, he’s modest and willing to put his flaws up there for anyone to read about. He has a life his mother cannot imagine, travelling across the country and beyond it, to torn-up Haiti and riots in the States. Throughout the course of his book he manages, through skill and luck, to break free of the pattern set by his drunk father, and really make a name for himself. He describes his upbringing in such detail that I couldn’t help but cheer him on as he worked his way up the ladder of journalism. Winning the Pulitzer Prize is such a pivotal moment for him, yet his focus is on his mother the whole time; his description of their trip to New York for him to receive the prize is told through his mother’s eyes and is especially moving and funny.
I think it will be awhile before I reread this one, if I do, because it’s got kind of a punch. But I’m glad to have read it for the first time.
Bragg has a very lyrical way of writing, and I can see why he won the Pulitzer Prize. A Southerner, through and through, he’s modest and willing to put his flaws up there for anyone to read about. He has a life his mother cannot imagine, travelling across the country and beyond it, to torn-up Haiti and riots in the States. Throughout the course of his book he manages, through skill and luck, to break free of the pattern set by his drunk father, and really make a name for himself. He describes his upbringing in such detail that I couldn’t help but cheer him on as he worked his way up the ladder of journalism. Winning the Pulitzer Prize is such a pivotal moment for him, yet his focus is on his mother the whole time; his description of their trip to New York for him to receive the prize is told through his mother’s eyes and is especially moving and funny.
I think it will be awhile before I reread this one, if I do, because it’s got kind of a punch. But I’m glad to have read it for the first time.
buttercupita's review against another edition
4.0
Incredible contrast to go from book set in New England prep school to this memoir of an impoverished boyhood in rural Alabama (not to mention the dissonance created when, in the midst of reading Bragg's descriptions of his mother "forgetting to eat" so her sons would have enough food, I got to serve lunch to 500+ BHS freshmen in the quad and watched as a table full of hot dogs sat in the sun uneaten while they waited for something better to show up...) I love to read about other American lives, and Bragg does a beautiful job painting the portrait of life in the rural south. His personal story is amazing, and I was moved by his ability to illuminate the lives of people suffering from natural disasters, poverty, and political oppression in the US and Haiti. My only complaint is that while he makes his mother the central anchor of the book, she remains two dimensional through most of it.
frostap's review against another edition
5.0
Definitely a Best of 2014, and probably a Best of My Life. Really excellent.
kelceyxreads's review against another edition
5.0
Reading this gutted me. I am a Southerner from a poor family in rural North Carolina, who grew up with an abusive father and, in my humble opinion, the strongest and most courageous mother. The words Bragg put to the page captured a feeling that for many years I thought no one else could understand, though I know my story is not unique. Poverty, anger, alcoholism - these are things people everywhere experience - and yet Bragg managed to bottle up feelings I once thought were so individual that they couldn't be shared. That alone earns "All Over But the Shoutin'" a permanent spot on my bookshelf.
The sacrifices our mothers make for us are so often overlooked. Their struggles, which can feel all too common, particularly in the South as I've come to know it, too often go unappreciated. It can be hard to feel thankful when poverty, as Bragg says, "chips away a person's dreams to the point that hopelessness shows through." But this book feels like a thank you. It champions mothers who, because of a love deep enough and dedicated enough to never give up hope that their children can escape, see to it that the next generation finds its way to greener (though not always better) pastures.
The sacrifices our mothers make for us are so often overlooked. Their struggles, which can feel all too common, particularly in the South as I've come to know it, too often go unappreciated. It can be hard to feel thankful when poverty, as Bragg says, "chips away a person's dreams to the point that hopelessness shows through." But this book feels like a thank you. It champions mothers who, because of a love deep enough and dedicated enough to never give up hope that their children can escape, see to it that the next generation finds its way to greener (though not always better) pastures.
jess_mango's review against another edition
4.0
Yet another memoir about growing up poor in the South!
Bragg's well-written memoir tells how his upbringing helped turn him into a Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times journalist. He pays great homage to his strong mother.
Bragg's well-written memoir tells how his upbringing helped turn him into a Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times journalist. He pays great homage to his strong mother.
goodem9199's review against another edition
5.0
Almost done with this, and dang skippy is it some good writin'!
Holy McMackerel....that was good...One of those writers that just has a way of making an ordinary sentence soar.
Holy McMackerel....that was good...One of those writers that just has a way of making an ordinary sentence soar.