Saturday, May 4, 2013

My Mother Killed Christ: But God Loves Me Anyway by Katie Roberta Stevens

My Mother Killed Christ by Katie Roberta Stevens
Interesting, bizarre, creepy, sad and funny at times, this book chronicles the author's life as a child of a mentally ill mother. The book kind of wanders around a bit and parts of it had me thinking that the apple did not fall too far from the tree. She tells about both her childhood and her adulthood showing how her neglectful and strange upbringing lead to problems in her adulthood.
I enjoyed the second part of the book, about her adult life as a teacher more than the first part as she went back and forth through the years describing her childhood.  One of the parts that struck me as funny was that when reading a reference to the Madonna, her students thought it was the singer and when she told them it was the virgin Mary, the students giggled at the word "virgin" and most of them had no idea what she was talking about.  After one student explained the concept of the virgin Mary to the class, they laughed that she got knocked up and that was the best excuse that she could come up with and that people actually believed it.  The story about sharing her classroom with a night time nursing class and the missing part of the body model was hilarious too.  While the author's Catholic school education and the way the nuns treated her was good, the creepy priest who made out with her seems to fulfill icky stereotypes and I am not surprised that she does not take part in any organized religion now.          

1 comment:

  1. Thank you for reading my book. I had a good laugh at "the apple didn't fall far from the tree" comment because my life certainly was crazy. As you know, all is well now and my siblings and I have raised wonderful children. In fact, my nephew graduated from law school this past week and my son was awarded his MBA. Therefore, I want to offer my sincere gratitude to you and women like you who dedicate themselves to "really seeing" the children they teach. Middle school years are the toughest and dedicating your talent to teaching adolescents that reading, writing, and dreaming are the ticket to a better tomorrow is the noblest thing one can do. Please accept my sincere Thank You on behalf of the many "Katies" that could not tell their stories.

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