This was such a heartbreaking memoir to read. I highly commend Bob Conn for being willing to tell her difficult and raw story. Reading about her childhood broke my heart. I wasn't aware how dark it was going to be from the start so it took me a while to finish reading. It was not an easy book to get through because of the sensitive topics presented in the book.

Thank you to NetGallery and to Little A for giving me a copy for my honest review

Having grown up in Appalachia (also in a holler), this book spoke to me. Although the author's life experiences and mine were very different, I knew many who's life looked much like hers. I was impressed with her strength and desire to carve a different path for her life. This memoir is not told in a linear way, but rather flows like memories do, jumping from one to another across time. From me, this felt authentic. There are pages that are hard to read...hard to imagine some of the experiences...harder yet to understand the strength to overcome such a hard beginning in life. This is a worthwhile read for many.

In the Shadow of the Valley is a heartbreaking memoir that juxtaposes the beauty of Conn's Appalachia home in Eastern Kentucky. She was raised in remote Kentucky holler, filled with natural beauty, yet the area was also strife with poverty and apathy. She was raised by an abusive father and stoic mother. Her only recourse was in her grandparent's nearby home, where unconditional love and food were served. Conn struggles with her own demons--of drugs, child abuse, neglect, abusive boyfriends, challenges of raising a child as a single parent--of the struggle of identifying with where you are from and where you are going. At its core, this memoir is a heartbreaking story of the cycle of poverty, of promise, and redemption. It's a story of a region, stripped of its natural assets and left barely able to survive. It's about resilience and how education can be a way out. It's about the people, their mistakes, their opportunities, and their decisions.

Bobi grows up in a dysfunctional family situation in a Kentucky holler. Bobi tries to navigate her way through many really awful situations including drugs, physical and verbal abuse, and poverty. Despite much negative self-talk and external forces, Bobi manages to leave her situation to make a better life for herself and her children.

I appreciate a story where someone pick themselves up by their boot straps, but this one wasn't for me. The story sort of loops back and forth many times rather than tracking either through time, by event, or by subject matter. I found myself unable to follow it on more than one occasion. I feel like this book was written for her to work through her own trauma than for having a cohesive story to be told.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest opinion.

Bobi Conn's memoir is about her life growing up in a Kentucky holler, and her life after leaving. If there is one word I could use to sum up the focus of this book it would be "relationships." Bobi's memoir focuses on the different relationships in her life - with her drug-addicted father, her abused mother, her loving Granny, her various abusive boyfriends and husbands, and her beloved children. This memoir was very difficult to read due to the tragic circumstances that life dealt Bobi. But it's heartening to know that she was able to heal (or at least begin to heal) from her traumatic past and move forward with creating a better life for herself and her own children.

I appreciated Bobi's desire to tell her story. However, this memoir read almost like a personal diary, rambling on with little temporal structure. It really seemed like Bobi wrote this memoir more for herself than for the reader - which is fine, but it doesn't make for the best reading.

Trigger warning: abuse, alcoholism, animal abuse, drugs, mental illness, rape, self-harm

Thanks to NetGalley for the book!

I hate when good writing gets ruined by bad editing (or maybe a lack of editing). Conn's memoir is about her life growing up in a holler in Kentucky with an abusive father. She does a wonderful job being honest about how this abuse affected her as a child and then all the way into adulthood. She doesn't shy away from painful truths about her family (which is riddled with drug abuse and violence) and is able to make insightful connections about how generations of trauma and addiction have impacted everyone. However, there were some events that seemed significant that were swept over (sometimes maddeningly so), while other memories were bogged down in too much detail. In a book that's otherwise overtly honest, it felt confusing to leave out major events (how she decided to stop using substances herself, who the father of her daughter was, for example). I think a stronger editing job would have ironed out these downfalls, and then the reader would have been able to just inhabit her world a little better. Unfortunately, because the book seemed uneven and way too long, I couldn't fall in love with the memoir like I would have liked. Readers should check out "Educated" by Tara Westover for an example of a memoir with similar subject matter that just seemed to work way better than this one. But I still tip my hat to Conn for being brave enough to tell her story.

With many hundreds of reviews already out there from reviewers smarter than I, I'll just say this is good, if uneven. Most readers will hard pressed not to be moved in some way.

I really appreciate the review copy!!

Raw open honest memoir Bobbi Conn brings us into her childhood in anAppalachian holler.The author lived a horrible childhood of abuse, struggle.She inspires Us with overcoming her childhood and survival.#netgalley#littleA

I very much struggled with this book. I went into thinking that this book was going to be fascinating but I struggled to connect to Bobi Conn's story.

This book was great! It was so easy to lose yourself in the story, and kept you turning pages to see what happened next! Will definitely be recommending!

I’ve struggled with this book. I could not connect with it. I cannot say I enjoyed it, but I did not hate it either. Honestly? I am disappointed. I love memoirs, I love reading about people’s lives and see how they overcome the difficulties, because that motivates me. But nothing motivated me in this book... Despite horrible, traumatizing childhood, I could not feel for the author.

I was constantly confused who was who, because not everyone in this memoir had a name. It was always « a friend », « a friend of a friend », « a boyfriend ». I struggled to follow the story, because the author would constantly jump from one time to another without me realizing it till later on... The memoir lacked emotions and I left like I was reading the same thing over and over again in almost every chapter. She would always talk about her abusive father, how terrible he was and how much she wanted to be loved. I get it, everyone gets it. I feel bad for the author, but I cannot give this book a high ranking and say how good it is, just because she had a difficult life. I judge the book by its writing and storytelling, and in this cause it was not to my liking.

IN THE SHADOW OF THE VALLEY is a memoir from Bobi Conn of her time growing up in a holler in Eastern Kentucky. She endures a difficult childhood, filled with abuse, neglect, and poverty. It is a difficult read at times as she has quite a difficult life, but it is a good example on how difficult it can be be to pull oneself out of poverty. Bobi has a difficult time making friends, but always enjoys reading and writing. She is placed into advanced classes in school, and is able to go to college. Even with that opportunity (which many do not obtain in her town), it is very difficult to rise about the poverty than envelopes that area of Kentucky. While there have been multiple memoirs from Appalachia, I have not read many from a female author, so this was a nice change in pace. As expected, there is a cycle of abuse, rampant drug use, and lack of employment opportunities. That is not to say that does not affect other areas of the country. But this is a nice reflection on generations of difficulty and how they manifest over time. The abuse that the author and her family had to endure was difficult to read about, but it provides context on her adult relationships, drug use, etc. It is a well-written memoir of the difficulties of living in rural Appalachia.

Another thought-provoking memoir for me, and one that while difficult to read at times, fills me with admiration for the author. While I had an easier upbringing by far, I could relate on many levels with her struggle to fit in, manage her family, and pursue her dreams far away from home. It makes me sad that so many people in communities like hers feel stuck, trapped, and embittered but I am encouraged that the author's intelligence and courage, and the path she followed, will serve as an inspiration for many others to follow their dreams.

I love a good memoir, and there aren’t nearly enough! It thrilled me to read In The Shadow of the Valley by Bobi Conn. She grew up in a small home in Kentucky, such a vast difference in how I grew up. I liked reading about her experiences and struggles.

Take a look:

Bobi Conn was raised in a remote Kentucky holler in 1980s Appalachia. She remembers her tin-roofed house tucked away in a vast forest paradise; the sparkling creeks, with their frogs and crawdads; the sweet blackberries growing along the road to her granny’s; and her abusive father, an underemployed alcoholic whose untethered rage and violence against Bobi and her mother were frighteningly typical of a community marginalized, desperate, and ignored. Bobi’s rule of survival: always be vigilant but endure it silently.

Slipping away from home, Bobi went to college and got a white-collar job. Mistrusted by her family for her progress and condescended to by peers for her accent and her history, she was followed by the markers of her class. Though she carried her childhood self everywhere, Bobi also finally found her voice.

An elegiac account of survival despite being born poor, female, and cloistered, Bobi’s testament is one of hope for all vulnerable populations, particularly women and girls caught in the cycle of poverty and abuse. On a continual path to worth, autonomy, and reinvention, Conn proves here that “the storyteller is the one with power.”

Bobi is honest and brutal in her words, she creates a clear and vivid portrait of Appalachia. Those who enjoy reading memoirs will want to put this on their To-Read list.

Read this book now, go here to buy it!

𝑾𝒉𝒆𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒘𝒆 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒃𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒅 𝒕𝒐 𝒔𝒐𝒎𝒆 𝒃𝒓𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕 𝒕𝒐𝒎𝒐𝒓𝒓𝒐𝒘 𝒐𝒓 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒇𝒂𝒊𝒍𝒖𝒓𝒆𝒔 𝒐𝒇 𝒚𝒆𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒅𝒂𝒚 𝒊𝒔 𝒚𝒆𝒕 𝒕𝒐 𝒃𝒆 𝒔𝒆𝒆𝒏.

Bobi Conn grew up in a Kentucky Holler in the 1980’s and it was an upbringing full of contradictions. There was Bobi’s granny, her love as sweet as a sun kissed blackberry, the unparalleled beauty of nature from amphibious creatures to those taking flight, and the exciting tales of her family’s ancestors (moonshiner great grandfather Conn in particular) these are the golden memories. Then there was the darkness… the foul weather of her father’s temper, his addictions, his angry narrative, her cowering mother who was too busy navigating his flights of rage to be much of a nurturer to Bobi and her brother, and boys whose hands are too curious and cruel for a little girl. There are lessons of obedience as well that get muddled in a young girl’s mind, not quite knowing her own power over her body, life and soul. How is a child to imagine a future that offers her a choice when all around her women have learned to accept chaos and violence as the norm? When even her granny is afraid of her own son?

There are many children who grow up in abusive homes, untoward numbers, but some have the misfortune of being an object of derision in school too- the one place other children can blend in, make friends, seek refuge. Some kids can evade the cloud of unhappiness that dogs their heels when among their peers but a child who can’t afford to look like the rest of their classmates is doomed to endure torment at school that feels as bad as the switches parents take to their flesh at home. If, like Bobi, a child is determined to learn and thrive in an educational environment despite their meager origins they have the added obstacle of not having the money for supplies. Other kids can sniff out the slightest difference in another child and Bobi knows she doesn’t fit in. Nothing upsets the balance more than someone trying to better themselves, other kids don’t make it easy.

Bobi learned how to hide her feelings, it is vital for survival in dangerous environments, but it stunts something in a person. There are many dead ends on her journey to something better, missteps, poor decision making, unhealthy relationships, infidelity and muddied romantic entanglements. It’s one thing to know your parent’s marriage is one of nuclear fallout and quite another to understand how to avoid the same radioactive choices. Our parents set the stage for our future in a sense, whether they mean to or not, in how the model love, in the way they argue, forgive, begrudge, hoard or share. Often in trying to be the exact opposite of our mother or father, we fall into the same traps. Bobi’s memoir is bare bones about her relationships, parenting- she fails as much as she succeeds. Don’t we all!

Cycles are hard to escape, we take the good with the bad. Our family’s story can be like a brain-worm- devouring any sense we have, do we feed it or kill the parasite? Our pasts truly lay dormant, sometimes the bitterness reveals itself when we ourselves try to navigate parenting, remain calm and not lash out or discipline with the wildness our own parents did. When Bobi escapes through education, she is neither of her new world nor the old and must discover a different way to live. When she is with her family, it’s hard to defend against wanting more than what’s on offer. In her absence, Her father sinks into darker holes within himself, has more children whose lives Bobi doesn’t have the energy nor means to fix. She watches her own brother trapped in the same old story, terrified he will end up just like her father. As Bobi reaches adulthood and the ‘reason’ that comes alongside maturity, she sees her father and his ‘law of the land’ mentality as less justifiable. When she has children, the fears of poverty are always threatening like some wild animal, scratching to get in. She works many jobs and puts herself through graduate school as a single mother, the father’s help sporadic. It’s impossible to ignore the truth of what’s before you, the whole rotten lot of it. This isn’t a memoir where a poor little girl climbs out of her bleak, broken childhood into a perfect, charmed adulthood. Bobi’s life is constantly under construction, just like the rest of us. Her past walks with the present just as it will be beside her in the future but one thing is certain, she will do everything she can to break the cycle that has kept her parent’s down.

Published May 1, 2020

Little A

When I began this book, I was drawn in. It was so much like my childhood, with being really poor, the whippings, wearing hand me downs, and moonshine, but that is where the similarities ended. It was a different time and drugs were prevalent, adding so much more misery to her life. It is hard to review a memoir because it is like I'm judging the person's life. I am not and am amazed at her ability to overcome diversity and get an education, become a loving parent, and realize her dream of becoming a writer. The setting was realistic and the characters were interesting. The book, however, was very repetitive and left me struggling to finish it. I sped through the first half and drug myself through to the end. Thank you NetGalley and Amazon Publishing for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

A Story of Travails and Hope

As I write this review during the coronavirus crisis, I find a book like this, which details one woman's journey from desperate circumstances in her childhood to success on her terms, to be uplifting and heartwarming, which is something I think we all need right now. She describes what happened to her with such honesty. Though the world she describes might seem foreign to those of us who have never lived in such a place or with those problems, her depiction of it makes it very real, which of course it was for her. But not every author can describe what happened to them well; I think writing a memoir is one of the hardest things to do, especially when you have had a difficult past. But the author is good at just opening the vein, so to speak, and bringing us into her reality. Bobi Conn, I wish you well in all of your future endeavors. You deserve it!

This happens so rarely that I must apologize. With a great deal of effort, I forced myself to read 50% of this book before giving up, being unable to read any more. After books like Where the Crawdads Sing and The Distance to Four Corners (which I recently finished and reviewed), I was ready to tackle another story (memoir) about childhood poverty and abuse. But those two books were worth reading and were beautifully written. In The Shadow of the Valley was not. I could not relate to Bobi in any way, nor understand her reactions to anything in her life. She continually says she was high, stoned, or under the influence of LSD. Yet she managed to go to school, work and even succeed as some thing. The book was repetitive and, to me, unreadable. Sorry.

It's hard to review memoirs because it feels as though you are commenting on the author's life and life choices. That's not the case here. Bobi Conn has shined a light onto Eastern Kentucky, both during her childhood and today. There have been a number of recent books focusing on the region and this is one of the most personal. Conn, despite the poverty, found her way up and out. Most importantly though, she didn't forget. While this would have benefited from another edit to tighten it in spots, it's got wonderful (well, not delightful) illuminating imagery. Thanks to netgalley for the ARC. Conn's passion for the people and region shines through.

A memoir set in the Appalacians that shows even with a terrible childhood, if you perservere and work hard you can still get ahead in life. This one just read a little too "poor me" for my liking.