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"  Never Tell Our Business to Strangers, by Jennifer Mascia  Mascia&amp;#039;s childhood and adolescence unfold in a blur of different states, houses, relatives, names, arrests, and arguments. It isn&amp;#039;t hard to understand why she was confused and at times angry with her parents, given the shocking amount of information one or both of them withheld, even when asked a direct question. When finally faced with the information that her father served time in prison for murder, and then committed more after his release, Mascia manages to do what only a daughter can\u2014continue loving him. After her father&amp;#039;s death and then that of her mother, Mascia continues to dig deeper in an effort to get to the bottom of a life that was kept secret from her for a reason. I continued to hope that through her grief for both parents, she would see the chance for a new beginning and put her past to rest as something that cannot be changed, no matter how many answers she gets, which is what I am hoping she did.\u2014Dana S. Kirkpatrick, Princeton, NJ Jennifer Mascia is the ultimate accessory to her parents&amp;#039; true-life Bonnie-and-Clyde lifestyle. Though we&amp;#039;re immersed in her saucy, smart-assed ascent into adulthood, Mascia&amp;#039;s story grips us when she attempts to scrape together the shards of organized crime, deceit, and shame that litter the dysfunctional path to her family&amp;#039;s past. As the truth bubbles to the surface, the bond to what she thought she knew becomes both blurred and bittersweet.\u2014Karyn Polewaczyk, Boston, MA  I was completely enthralled with Jennifer&amp;#039;s story, captivated by the warmth and closeness of this small family and the love they shared. But much of the early sentiment was ruined by the last third of the book, where she detailed her efforts to reconcile her past and find herself. It wasn&amp;#039;t very interesting, and she went a little too far in trying to convince us that this delightful childhood she had portrayed in the beginning was really just an abusive, dysfunctional family unit. It left a bad taste in the end.\u2014Julie Taschetta, Los Angeles  Mascia writes with a wry clarity that comes with struggle, but she never borders on self-pity. Her journey to reconcile the life she thought she had with the life that actually existed is one that not many of us can imagine, but the central themes and events in the book are universal, which makes her story resonate on many levels.\u2014Jaime Herndon, Chapel Hill, NC Mascia is a talented writer, but her obsession with finding out each excruciating detail of her father&amp;#039;s past\u2014then each time becoming shocked and distraught\u2014becomes tedious. The reader gets the point long before Mascia does.\u2014Penny Bernal, Encinitas, CA Every parent starts out wanting nothing but the best for their children. The Mascia family takes that to an entirely different level. Unfortunately, what they are trying to protect their daughter from may be the one thing that will ultimately tear their family apart.\u2014Christy Richards, Lakewood, CO A 400-page memoir by the daughter of two unknown, characterless criminals? Where, oh where, was the editor? The Glass Castle this is not.\u2014Ashley St. Thomas, Washington, DC  Dead End Gene Pool, by Wendy Burden  Burden&amp;#039;s book reads like a series of biographical vignettes about her extraordinarily wealthy grandparents, who inherited their fortune from ancestor Cornelius Vanderbilt. As we&amp;#039;re told is often the case with the idle rich, the family is plagued by depression, drugs, alcohol, suicide, and dementia. With such readily available material and the author&amp;#039;s unsentimental yet vivid style (&amp;quot;It was the kind of sultry evening when...the humid air is so dense the lightning bugs have to swim through it&amp;quot;), it&amp;#039;s surprising that Dead End Gene Pool remains rather lifeless on the page. For better or worse, the reader of a memoir can often follow the catharsis its author underwent while writing it. In Dead End Gene Pool, Burden saves any real emotional digging until the final chapters\u2014when, among other things, she learns the truth about her father&amp;#039;s suicide, discovers the real chaos behind her mother&amp;#039;s alcoholism and promiscuity, and visits both of her brothers in rehab. In contrast to Burden&amp;#039;s extensive detailing of her grandparents&amp;#039; homes, wardrobes, meals, and mannerisms, however, these moments of introspection and empathy are a vague afterthought. Given Burden&amp;#039;s dry wit and her unemotional upbringing, scenes revealing any actual attachment to her family members are fittingly rare. But we&amp;#039;re left feeling cheated out of something ever more valuable than a birthright lobster dinner.\u2014Ashley St. Thomas, Washington, DC  Burden&amp;#039;s life story will resonate with anyone who thought they weren&amp;#039;t the preferred child, had a crazy extended family, or was ever embarrassed by their mother as a teenager. While the rich are different, children are not. Thankfully, through suicides, deaths, and stints in rehab by her relatives, Burden seems to realize that not being born male, and therefore burdened with the unending attention of her grandparents, may have spared her an even more confusing life.\u2014Dana S. Kirkpatrick, Princeton, NJ Reading this book was like reading a transcript of back-to back episodes of Access Hollywood. I found it to be gossipy, disrespectful and overall not the least bit interesting.\u2014Julie Taschetta, Los Angeles I really hope this gene pool does end here.\u2014Marie Robinson, Crofton, MD  Corked, by Kathryn Borel  I was drawn in to Kathryn&amp;#039;s complicated and troubled relationship with her father. I related to her mortified, breath-holding moments when he was making a scene, her desperate, unsuccessful attempts to engage him emotionally and, ultimately, her realization that he is who he is and will probably never be exactly what she expects him to be. The book is that much better for her resistance to making her own personal drama with her father, Matthew, more than a minor thread through the narrative. Had she delved more into that, the main story would have lost much of its impact and appeal.\u2014Julie Taschetta, Los Angeles We get a glimpse of what makes this road trip with Dad a little different from piling the kids in the station wagon and heading off to Disneyland: &amp;quot;I like to make people feel like sheet about themselves.&amp;quot; Another Sideways it is not, but it is an entertaining read.\u2014Christy Richards, Lakewood, CO This book is about a woman going on a wine-themed road trip through France with her father. That makes it sound delightful, doesn&amp;#039;t it? And yet, it&amp;#039;s not a delightful story. It&amp;#039;s confusing, actually, how this woman\u2014who seems so bright and articulate\u2014wants anything to do with her boorish, rude, overbearing father.\u2014Marie Robinson, Crofton, MD  We learn more about five-star cuisine and wine than we do about Kathryn&amp;#039;s relationship with Philippe, her self-described &amp;quot;eccentric genius&amp;quot; father.\u2014Karyn Polewaczyk, Boston, MA In this father-daughter road trip through the vineyards of France, Kathryn Borel tries to change from child to contemporary in the sophisticated if aging eyes of her father\u2014a former chef and lifelong wine connoisseur. The result is quite the opposite, however. Borel&amp;#039;s constant neuroses about using the wrong adjective to describe a wine, her na\u00EFve desire for a &amp;quot;determining experience,&amp;quot; and her predictable whining about her father&amp;#039;s idiosyncrasies make this memoir more childish than charming.\u2014Ashley St. Thomas, Washington, DC Borel&amp;#039;s trip through France is presented through a series of experiences that seem to alternate between the stuff that dreams are made of and the stuff that nightmares are made of. While the memoir is dotted with sweet interactions wherein Borel is clearly trying to impress her father with her intelligence and aptitude for tasting wine, I was continually puzzled as to why, during her moments of rage towards her father&amp;#039;s apparently typical behavior, she couldn&amp;#039;t just tell him why she was so mad.\u2014Dana S. Kirkpatrick, Princeton, NJ The scenic travel interludes and wine descriptions are involving, but Kathryn&amp;#039;s interior &amp;quot;whinologues&amp;quot; show the acorn doesn&amp;#039;t fall far from the tree.\u2014Penny Bernal, Encinitas, CA "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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