I absolutely love a juicy memoir, and this one reads more like an impossible-to-believe novel than a memoir. Impossible to believe, impossible to put down - I absolutely loved it.

Mikel Jollett was born into one of the most infamous cults of America - Synanon. Subjected to a childhood of poverty, addiction, and emotional abuse. Jollet slowly builds a life that leads him to University, and finding his voice as a musician and writer.

I don’t usually read memoirs by men & wasn’t sure what to expect.

HOWEVER. I love my true crime & seeing the mention of Synanon, I was intrigued.

I was 𝗯𝗹𝗼𝘄𝗻 𝗮𝘄𝗮𝘆 with this memoir. There is so much to unpack and I’m dying to hear everyone’s thoughts when they get a chance to read this. I read and listened on audio, meaning my husband got to listen to a fair chunk when I was working and he kept asking questions to be filled in on what he missed.

Coming from a background working in a mandated rehab and domestic violence centre, I was seeing red flags everywhere- but despite everything, Jollett ultimately shares a story with fierce love and loyalty. I really wanted to give young Jollett the biggest hugs and teared up a few times.
It’s so easy to look at people and situations from the outside or in hindsight, and judge- but hearing from Jollett perspective many will realize that when you are raised in a dysfunctional or abusive household, you don’t realize what is normal, what is wrong or right for adults to do.

There are many latchkey kid escapades that made me laugh out loud as well, which helped between the more tense moments.

By the end, this was also motivating to read. Jollett did not escape the effects of trauma and addictions present from an early age, but he hasn’t let them dictate the course of his life, and I found that inspiring.

Highly highly HIGHLY recommend.

Mikel Jollett’s early life was not a happy one. In fact, there were a number of times while reading this memoir that I wished it were fiction, because the idea of it being someone’s reality was too much. Fortunately, both for readers and Mikel, his life did improve. The resulting memoir is a powerful and well-written coming of age story.

I recommend it for those who enjoyed Tara Westover’s Educated, though I also would include a caution that there are some particularly violent and graphic scenes. One of the most distinctive features of the memoir is the change in the narrator’s voice as Mikel ages. At the beginning of the book, the language and understanding of the world reflects a precocious young child (his mother falls into periods of deep-russian, rather than depression). Gradually, as Mikel matures, so does the language and understanding of the world. My personal enjoyment of this book was probably a 3.5, including the week-long break that I had to take from the more depressing part of the story. I’ve rounded up to a four-star rating based on my opinion of the quality of the writing and storytelling.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher for an honest review.

I wasn't familiar with Mikel Jollet's story before picking up this book, but I was pretty familiar with Synanon, the drug rehab turned cult community from his childhood. That was what drew me to this book as I'm a true crime fan. I got so much more than I bargained for with this story, from his depictions of growing up literally slaughtering baby rabbits to his mother dragging them to every AA and NA group she could find to all the men she introduced to their lives, and quietly in the background, his father providing really the only stable adult influence in his young life. His story is insightful, full of painful memories, a story of growth, and just beautifully written. Fantastic memoir.

A truly heart-wrenching, brutally honest memoir about a complicated life. Addiction, depression, pain, abuse, neglect, mental illness, but most of all gratitude.and love were depicted in this engaging story.
Thank you NetGalley and Celadon Books for the advanced reading copy.

This was a very well written memoir, just wonderful and kept my interest from beginning to end. It’s yet another one that I read at one go! It tells the story of a family’s spending their early years in the unusual environment of the cultish group Church of Synanon, affected their later years. The group started out as a drug rehab and the family went there so the father could get off heroin. Both author Mikel Jollett and his brother were put into what was called The School, but it was basically an orphanage where a group of women cared for the children. The parents were sent off to do various other jobs in the organization, and were only occasionally allowed to visit the children. This started from the age of 6 months, and went on until Mikel was like 5, and his older brother was 7 or so and more greatly affected. Their parents split when the father took up with another woman in the group, and they eventually divorced. They had both became disillusioned with the leader of Synanon and escaped from it. The mother took the boys to Oregon.

This is such a good memoir, I hope it gets a lot of reads. There is so much more after this beginning, but I want you to read it for yourself. I do highly recommend this book. I look forward to checking out some of his other writing now, and may as well sample some of his band’s music as well while I’m at it.   I’m on another lucky streak again with my ARC’s! Advanced electronic review copy was provided by NetGalley, author Mikel Jollet, and Celadon .

First of all, I'm a HUGE fan of Airborne Toxic Event. Their music has been played throughout my adult years and I was so excited to read this book because of that. I learned so much more about Mikel Jollett than I thought I would. Reading this made me want to know more about him, his life and his music than I ever did before.

This book goes into being in a cult and escaping. Drugs, chronic addiction, poverty, family struggles and more. It's a very deep book that I found myself on the verge of tears more than once. This book deals with mental health and addiction. He also goes into how he started the band and his songwriting, which I'm a huge fan of.

This book is fantastic and not at all what I expected. It's much more than that.

In 2009 I graduated from high school. During my senior year, I discovered The Airborne Toxic Event and fell in love. As an agsnty teenager, I would spend hours listening to their first album on repeat and didn't understand why, at the time, it effected me so much. "Sometime Around Midnight" was THE song to listen to when you were feeling lonely and heartbroken, and didn't get asked to Prom, and then the person you asked showed up anyway with someone else. I didn't realize until later that the reason I was so drawn to this music, was mostly in part due to the writing of Mikel Jollett. As an avid reader, and a librarian, you understand what "writing" looks like, and sounds like, and Mikel Jollett does it seemingly without even trying.

I've loved Mikel Jollett since he was a on NPR and writing for magazines, but "Hollywood Park" takes a look at what a life this man has had, growing up in a cult, unhealthy relationships with his parents, etc., and how he still managed to create such beautiful and meaningful pieces of music. If your a fan of the first album that TATE released, you know that Mikel Jollett wrote it during "one of the worsts weeks" of his life. Knowing that, I can't believe what he has overcome, and what he's doing now. "Hollywood Park" takes a look at all the hardships in life (and even some that we may not have had to deal with) and how this man used his pain and his nontraditional upbringing to make music, fall in love, start a family, and ultimately live his life despite all of it. I highly recommend this book, and I can't wait to hear the new music that was inspired by it.

The book opens with Mikel's mother taking them away from the Synanon cult. At the cult, children were separated from parents, to be raised as "Children of the Universe." After escaping, the family moves to Oregon, where they live in poverty, surrounded by addicts and emotional abuse.

This book felt more like a therapy journal than a story. The voice of young Mikel was too nostalgic, too reflective to be believable. Although the cult was mentioned throughout the book, I had to Google the cult to get a real grasp of what it was. Overall, this book was a bust.

Prior to reading this, I knew nothing about the author, nor his place in history as the frontman of the band Airborn Toxic. In fact, as I immersed myself in the book, I had to remind myself that these events really happened to someone, sometimes outlandish and always painful. I immediately had the same feeling that I had when I read Educated, but this time a startling story of a blighted life from when he was first raised in a famous commune/cult called /Synanon. Separated by their birth parents the children had to live on their own in the "School" after 6 months. One day his mother escaped with him and his older brother Tony but life inside was more stable than the outside world. A narcissistic mother who expected her children to care for her, frequent men, temporary husbands, violence, drugs and alcohol permeate the book and wreak havoc in all their lives. Enter Dad. The ex husband. Another character who though he was an ex junkie and prisoner, spends summers with the kids in a crude but very warm and loving fashion.The book starts from mikel's perspective as a child and metamorphosis into a more mature man as he struggles with the questions of life and experiments with who he wants to become. It is the struggles and love that are the backbone of this book, and pulled at my heart heartstrings. The pain was raw, and I found myself constantly underlining passages . Readers will understand later when I say.."He saw me!"..Definitely a book not to miss!

great writing, informative. So glad I know more about this author and the circumstances of his life. Inspiring, honest story,

An astounding and sacred work, HOLLYWOOD PARK is the memoir of Airborne Toxic Event frontman Mikel Jollet. Writing from the perspective of his younger self and gradually his adult self, Jollet explores the trauma and dysfunction of a childhood born in a cult and raised by a narcissist. Jollet's child-self is both prescient and precocious, but his narrative never fails to accurately describe his deep confusion and pain he suffers at the hands of his mother, various father figures, and brother. His strength as lyricist shines through his brutally beautiful descriptions and it is a wonderful relief to witness him turn into the incredibly talented musician we know he is.