This was too hard for me to get through. I loved the writing, but there were some things mentioned which made I didn't want to read on.

Reading this brutal coming-of-age memoir felt like being trapped in a nightmare. From a young age, Alice Carrière experienced an incredible mix of privilege, neglect, and inappropriate parenting that I could not relate to, but she communicated her story in such a vivid way that I felt like I was experiencing it along with her. Her story becomes increasingly surreal during her teen years as she experiences increasing mental illness, which she attempts to cope with by self-harm, substance abuse, and destructive relationships.

I was furious with all of the adults in her life who failed to give Alice the help she needed. For years, the mental health professionals she trusted only made her situation worse. I kept wanting to scream at her to wake up, to make different decisions, but her downward spiral continued.

Alice eventually finds her way, and while I still think this is a very sad story, it reaches a satisfying conclusion. I can’t really say I enjoyed reading this, but it certainly held my interest.

Be aware that the author loves to show off her extensive vocabulary, and she shares some very disturbing stories of child abuse, mental illness, substance abuse, and sexual activity in vivid detail.

I received a complimentary ARC through NetGalley that I volunteered to review.

Heartbreaking story of a traumatic childhood, Alice had to become an adult at a very early age.
We follow along with Alice as she navigates her memories, her treatment, and her ongoing recovery. Beautifully written.

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗯𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗮𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝘄𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝗽𝗼𝗿𝗼𝘂𝘀. 𝗜𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗵𝗼𝘂𝘀𝗲 𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗹𝗱 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝘁𝗲𝗹𝗹 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗱𝗶𝗳𝗳𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗯𝗲𝘁𝘄𝗲𝗲𝗻 𝗳𝗮𝗻𝘁𝗮𝘀𝘆 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆, 𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗼𝗯𝗷𝗲𝗰𝘁, 𝗽𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗰𝗵𝗶𝗹𝗱.

Alice Carriére grow up with famous parents, artist Jennifer Bartlett and European actor Mathieu Carriére, a bohemian existence many people would envy, in theory, but there was distance and a lack of boundaries in both parents, exposing Alice to adulthood long before she was ready. Jennifer's art was fueled by a need for privacy, the connection between mother and daughter in their massive house in New York City was via an intercom. The only mother she really had for nurturing was Nanny, a British governess much like a Mary Poppins character. As her parents' marriage fell apart, her father was eventually banished to a small room, until he was ultimately kicked out. A home of lavish parties, giant windows where people could see in, doors without locks, and a glorious garden with fruit trees, a koi pond, a spiral staircase covered in roses, all of this on top of a building in the middle of Manhattan like a dream. The open concept of this house left no room for secrecy of body or mind, the home designed for the artist alone, "𝘢𝘴 𝘪𝘧 𝘐 𝘭𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘥 𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘪𝘥𝘦 𝘮𝘺 𝘮𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳'𝘴 𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘥." The house was always full of people, the staff necessary to accommodate Jennifer's needs and to keep things moving. Often there were strangers as well as her mother's friends and yet in all that space there seemed to be no room for Alice to imprint herself.

Alice spent her time alone and mostly friendless. Surrounded by adults, often famous ones, learning to anticipate the demands and needs of the grownups, she was a proper little hostess. In turn, she didn't know how to act around other children and was often made fun of by her peers. Living in bohemia left her lost, taught nothing about reality, making her question her very existence and wondering if maybe she was a figment of her mother's imagination, "𝘐 𝘸𝘢𝘵𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘥 𝘮𝘺 𝘮𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘢𝘴 𝘴𝘩𝘦 𝘭𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘥 𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦 𝘢𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 𝘮𝘦." As Bartlett was a self-contained, guarded woman, Alice's father was the opposite, a sex symbol, highly intelligent, a polyglot. If Jennifer was cold and distant, Mathieu was loud, exciting, would ask people intimate, probing questions, and was drawn to uncomfortable, strange philosophies. Jennifer had her own odd beliefs, a recovered memory that would frighten anyone and yet these scraps from her past weren't often forthcoming. When Jennifer starts therapy, she soon accuses Alice's father of vile things, and yet guards Alice from the fallout. One parent is closed off, the other is too open. Stories percolate about her father, and Alice doesn't know what is true and what is a lie. Her allegiance was often to her father, hungry for explanations her mother would refuse to provide. Mathieu made her feel important and seen, even when they were continents apart, but the world he brings her into confuses her role, is she his daughter, friend, mother or wife? He sexualizes her, complimenting her derrière when she is eleven. She begins to call him by his first name, and while she loves nothing more than being his audience, he isn't protective of her, doesn't treat her as a daughter.

Alice grows up in privileged negligence, she self-harms and is flailing for an identity, locked in a war between two parents, both are failing her in their own unique ways. She scatters, struggles with dissociative disorder, is overmedicated by doctors and encouraged to remain an indefinite patient at an "opensetting' psychiatric hospital for the rich, and yet manages to hit New York's music scene where she meets an older man who introduces her to heavy drugs, on top the psychiatric medications she is already downing. She drifts between damaged men, often older, and her father's friends and new family, hurt by the differences in his approach to them. Her mental health continues to suffer, and her decline cannot be denied. She learns to face her trauma and heal, and as her mother's dementia worsens, she sees a tenderness she never knew. This powerful woman is suddenly in need of her attentions and she may finally let her guard down enough to be known. In time, she is finally able to press her father on his scandalous behavior toward her through the years, leading her to the place she is today. It is a Greenwich Village tale you don't often get to read about, from a child's perspective. Moving, painful, and searing, yes read it.

Publication Date: August 29, 2023

Spiegel & Grau

I requested this book as an advance reader's copy to fufill a challenge prompt but it is definitely one outside my normal reading genres. I do enjoy memoirs, however, so thought that this one might be a good one to try. Despite that, however, I really struggled with this book.

I think anyone who reads this one will be sympathetic and empathetic to the difficulties Alice Carriere went through in her early life and into her 20s. While she was the very priviledged child of affluent, creative parents, she did not have an easy childhood and her mental health issues that began in early adolescence certainly contributed to many difficult years as she struggled with disassociative episodes, became a cutter, started using/abusing drugs and alcohol and eventually was institutionalized. The book highlights the great divide between people with money who can pay for resort-like conditions in a full-service inpatient experience and those who cannot. The author was one of the lucky ones whose family could afford to pay for any and all treatments for her.

Despite the fact that I can appreciate and admire the difficult path the author walked, I'm not sure that I learned much from this memoir and I had a hard time connecting with the author on almost any level. Throughout the book, I kept thinking to myself "If she didn't have the wealth of her parents backing her up, she'd be on the street or in the morgue and how many other people with mental health difficulties are experiencing that?" I'd wager a LOT more than someone like the author who moved in rarified circles. So that leads me to ask what the point of this book is. I feel sure it was a cathartic and emotional way of moving past her earlier demons, but I wonder what the draw for the average external reader might be. Most of the book felt like the poor little rich girl struggling along but again, there are many MANY people with severe mental health issues who have even less support than the author did for hers.

I'm glad the writer was able to find some closure and treatment that worked to improve her life and certainly that is of value to her, but this book was a bit of a disappointment for me. I wanted more from this title than I got.

Trigger Warnings: sexual abuse, false memory, inherited trauma, mental illness, drug and alcohol addiction

In this memoir of Alice Carrière, she tells the story of her unconventional upbringing in Greenwich Village as the daughter of renowned artist Jennifer Bartlett and European actor Mathieu Carrière. Growing up in the bohemian 90’s, Alice must navigate her mother’s recovered memories of ritualized sexual abuse that she turns into art, and her father’s odd and confusing attentions. For the most part, Alice is left alone with little-to-no enforcement of boundaries or supervision.

When she enters adolescence, Alice begins to lose herself as a dissociative disorder begins to take over. She bounces in and out of mental hospitals and takes up various roles around town while bouncing from one experience to another in a medicated state. Eventually, she finds purpose in caring for her Alzheimer’-afflicted mother. With the help of a recovering addict who loves her, Alice also finds the courage to confront her father, whose words and actions splintered her.

I haven’t read a lot of written memoirs (I’ve read a few graphic novel memoirs/biographies). But, this year I’m trying to make sure I branch out and read a different variety of genres. This one caught my eye because of the mental health aspect and growing up in the 90’s. Mental health and the stigma around it has drastically changed within the last few years. I grew up in the 90’s/00’s and I remember you didn’t talk about mental health - now I make jokes with my coworkers about our crippling depression/anxiety almost daily.

This memoir won’t be for everybody. Everything/Nothing/Someone deals with a lot of heavy subjects, but it is very thought-provoking and a look at how mental health was tackled and the stigma with it in the 90’s, early 2000’s.

*Thank you Spiegel & Grau, Publishers Weekly, and NetGalley for a digital advance copy of this memoir in exchange for an honest review

I liked this book for the most part, but some parts seemed unbelievable. She just seemed exhausting at times. It is sad she had to go through all that, and she didn’t get the help she needed earlier. It is sad how some kids don’t have parents that lead them in the right direction and put their trauma on to their children. I liked how she found closure which helped with her healing.

It's books like this that remind us that for some, the world is a nightmare at best and a horror show at worst. Carriere's memories of her childhood and imagined or real abuse, sexual openness of her father and coldness of her mother would cause even the strongest among us to break.

I applaud the author for her candidness and for fully disclosing her world. The stream-of-consciousness style of writing was a bit hard to follow, as was the subject matter for a lot of the book. It was interesting that both her mother, nanny and the author herself kept journals, so that this book was heavily informed by actual accounts (from each perspective) of what took place during the time periods written about. Very sad, indeed.

Thank you to NetGalley and Speigel & Grau for an advance reader's copy for review.

Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC!

I did not get to this title, so I don't feel comfortable rating it fully, hoping to get to it at some point soon!

Carriere's memoir details abundance and wealth, as well as neglect and verbal abuse at the hands of her artist mother and actor father. At a young age, she began cutting and eventually ended up in psychiatric care, taking a large variety of heavy-duty prescription medications. She unflinchingly shares her darkest moments and manages to paint a clear picture of how medication influenced her through physical symptoms and behavior, including side effects that led to yet more prescriptions. Eventually she experiences dissociation and even through this break from her own self she manages to vividly express what it felt like to not recognize or experience her self as her own self anymore.

The chronology is confusing at points, and I wished she had shared the details of her nanny's life and their relationship sooner. Still, this is a breathtakingly open and honest memoir that explores a difficult childhood and the challenges of mental illness.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC of this book.

Alice Carriere is a child of pretty prominent figures in the art and entertainment fields. Her mother, Jennifer Bartlett, is an accomplished artist, and her father, Matthieu Carriere, is a successful European actor. Ms. Carriere details her childhood with these parents, which involved emotional distance from her mother and perplexing, inappropriate emotions from her father.

She begins to discover that she is dealing with a dissociative identity disorder along with other mental maladies and seeks treatment several times over. Ms. Carriere is prescribed numerous medications to go through each day and describes how they tear her body and mind apart. She navigates the relationships with her parents as she progresses further into adulthood, especially in the face of her mother's debilitating illnesses.

This is a beautifully written debut memoir. I had to keep reading about Alice's childhood and the effects of this as she reached adolescence and adulthood. At times, the book reminded me a little bit of "I'm Glad My Mom Died" by Jeannette McCurdy. There were several times throughout this book that I wanted to reach out to Ms. Carriere and hug her, just to let her know that it will be okay. I was heartbroken that a woman born into this kind of privilege has dealt with this kind of heartbreak throughout her life.

Although this was a quick read (less than 300 pages), it was a little intense for me at times. I will be honest I had to take a step back from the book several times in the six days that it took me to finish this because some of the content was a little too much to handle. Keep in mind that there are trigger warnings for self-harm and drug use.

I hope that readers will pick this up on release day. The raw emotion and admissions by Ms. Carriere will keep you very interested in her journey.

A memoir I could not put down.the author shares her childhood her world her life in an open heart wrenching style.Raw hard at times to read so honest so intimate a book you will not forget.#netgalley #spiegelandgrau

I received an ARC of this memoir from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

The book details the complicated childhood and young adulthood of a young woman with gifted yet very flawed parents.

I love Alice's brutal honesty and the details of her work to heal herself and her familial relationships.

Woah. The truth is indeed stranger than fiction. This is a memoir of an ultra-wealthy woman with an ultra-famous artist mom. It’s filled with lovely writing as the author describes her abuse and drug use and self-mutilation that is told with unflinching detail. It kinda broke my heart. All of the money and resources imaginable and no stable parenting to ground this (then) kid. At times, had to put it down as the descriptions of drug use and chaos was overwhelming to me. That said, it’s very well done and a peek at an incredibly wealthy life turned upside down.

This was the most impactful memoir I’ve read in a long time. It made me feel uncomfortable, shocked, sad and at the end so in awe of the human spirit and the power of believing in yourself and forgiveness.

Please read this book.

Gorgeously written and raw. I'm so glad I read this book. Thank you to Spiegel and Grau for the ARC.

Heartbreaking, raw, incredibly touching piece of work. I’m always looking for these memoirs that cut deep into me. I think we should all gain the perspective of others, I’m thankful for the opportunity to read this ARC. Thank you.

It's always difficult to provide a brief synopsis of memoirs, particularly when they are as personal and honest as this one. Simply put, Alice Carriere lived an unconventional childhood. Daughter of renowned parents - artist mother, actor father - and growing up in Greenwich Village, Carriere was early surrounded by people many of us would be starstruck by. More saliently, Carriere's childhood was impacted by the distance of her mother, who was engaged in "recovering" horrific memories and turning them into art; and by the closeness of her father, which often became inappropriate. As she grew older, Carriere began to feel disassociated from herself; and, when she sought help, she was placed on an ever-increasing cocktail of medication, knowing only to place her trust in doctors and therapists even as she lost herself further.

Everything/Nothing/Someone is unyielding and unforgiving: not of it's characters, but of the reader. Carriere is brutally honest about her experiences, and this book is not going to be for everyone. There will be some for whom this hits too close to home. There are descriptions (sometimes 'graphic', whatever that might mean) of self-harm, abuse, 'body horror', and mental illness. It is a really, really tough read, and there should be no judgement about feeling that this is not for you. Equally, I think there will be a group of people who should read this, for whatever reason, who will see Carriere's honesty as a reason to shy away. Particularly, the depictions of the American medical complex are devastating. I can't remember the exact wording, but one section refers to her increasing list of diagnoses - diagnoses which happen to have the same symptoms as the side effects of the medication she is on, yet result in further medications themselves. Carriere also explores and examines the devastation that medical professionals can have, even when their intentions might be as good as possible.

Something really striking about this book is that Carriere writes with so much love and respect. Her experiences, particularly with her parents, are often not positive, and that is clear. Yet throughout it all she writes in a way that is fair and avoids being overly inflammatory. She touches on her mother's "recovered" memories, and talks a little about the wider contexts of the time, but does not take away from the trauma her mother uncovered. Similarly, when Carriere goes to meet with her father, it is not just to talk, but also to listen.

Just as I find it difficult to write any account of the content of memoirs, I also find them difficult to critique. There were parts of the narrative that I wish had been further explored. Although the beginning talks a lot about Carriere's use of self-harm, and alludes to this continuing, it features less heavily later on. A major event towards the end is precipitated by a crisis in her mental health, but it is never really explained whether this crisis eventually stabilises. Carriere's life was - in my reading - profoundly affected by the decisions of prescribers and therapists, and I wonder how she feels about these now. I personally would have liked to know more about all of these - but it's also not my memoir. It's not me baring my soul to the world. And that's something I think we need to remember more, when critiquing or discussing memoir or other such personal writings, that we are not entitled to the full story, just because someone chooses to share part of it.

Everything/Nothing/Someone does not have a pretty ending, by which I mean that it doesn't tie everything up with a bow. This is real life. I think this might be one of the greatest books I have ever read.

Thank you, Alice.

(With thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an eARC, in exchange for a fair and honest review).

Thank you to NetGalley and Spiegel and Grau for this Advanced Copy!

What an intense, brutally honest memoir. Alice tells the tale of her live living with mental illness, including living with family members who were clearly suffering and had a deep impact on her life. She tells such deep stories and writes them so beautifully. I was relieved to see some healing towards the end, as you really feel for her struggles on top of our mental healthcare system being so deeply flawed. I would love to read more by this author.

As much as I enjoyed this book I want to preface my review by saying this title isn't for everyone & has lots of triggers about abuse, mental illness, cutting, sexual impropriety & drug use throughout.
Some may find it difficult or anger inducing to read about what the author went through. I know at times it was for me and I also felt great sorrow for what she was subjected to by her parents.

Her mom was a famous artist & her father was a European actor & she was mostly raised by her nanny--being shuttled between her parents after they divorced.
I don't want to give a rehash of the synopsis--let's just say the author does a great job of illustrating the scenes that eventually drove her into the mental health system & the dismal job said system did to help her over many many years & lots & lots of pills.
It was lovely to see her come out the other side & even more so to see who came with her (read & discover who)