“Brittany Means has pieced together the shards of a devastating childhood in this powerful memoir. It’s gut-wrenching but at the same time triumphant, harrowing yet exquisitely told. Hell If We Don’t Change Our Ways is a story of survival that left me choked up and cheering.”
–Jeannette Walls, author of The Glass Castle

This was not an easy read but it was a very thought-provoking one. The themes are quite heavy: poverty, abuse, neglect, religion. And I definitely recommend checking the trigger warnings. The narration done by the author was fantastic!

As someone who has way more in common with Brittany’s story than I’d like to admit, these types of stories are so therapeutic and I appreciate every author brave enough to share their truth. It is healing to know you aren’t alone. I loved seeing the raw, honest emotion and more, importantly, how truly amazing our minds and brains can be at overcoming trauma.

Brittany Means' Hell if We Don't Change Our Ways is as amazing as the title is... Thank you Zibby for the review copies (and an apology for a belated post/review, October was filled with sickness and work stuff, a good memoir needed more time than I had to give it).
This is a heavy read, a reader with a past placed in abuse and trauma may find this a healing read for visibility or triggering... check the content notes.
This book reminds me that children are resilient but that resilience is only needed when harm or significant challenges are in the way... and this book captures what it feels like to be this child, to experience dysfunction and uncertainty.
Memoirs matter for all sorts of reasons and this one elevates a hard story and gives it voice... perhaps we should collectively change our ways and don't walk away from tough reads and lived experiences.

I am a huge fan of Jeannette Walls, with The Glass Castle being one of my top five all-time favorite books. So when Jeannette says “Hell If We Don’t Change Our Ways is a story of survival that left me choked up and cheering.” My reaction? “SIGN ME UP!”

Brittany spent her very traumatic childhood accompanying her mother and her younger brother (who she took care of more often than not) through a series of horribly abusive relationships. They had pretty much no money and their home life was incredibly unstable. As Brittany grew up, she struggled through her own complicated relationships, and she came to recognize that hell wasn't that place she had read about in the Bible; Instead, she realized that hell it was the life she had experienced in her family.

Much like Jeannette Walls did in The Glass Castle, Brittany honestly tells her story, which is part memoir and part a feminist coming-of-age tale. As an adult, she has been a successful technical writer, writer, and editor. I loved this book, but I’m kind of a sucker for a story told by a woman who is willing to be honest and vulnerable. Four stars.

Wow! Brittany Means has gone through A LOT in her life, more than any one person should have to endure. The way she tells her story with a quiet grace makes it all the more powerful and haunting.

A shocking true story of the struggles one girl and her brother faced growing up with an addict mom who was in and out of their lives. She was not always able to remember certain details of her life due to the extreme trauma that she went through, but her brain was trying to save her from some of those memories. How these kids survived and are now thriving as adults is amazing! Thank you for the ARC!

Gosh, where do I even begin? This book is so beautiful and heartbreaking, powerful and gut-wrenching, and I can’t even find the words to adequately praise this memoir. Brittany is a capital W writer and this masterpiece had me so moved and connected yet I found myself having to take breaks because of the deeply heavy content.

Reminiscent of Jeannette Walls’ The Glass Castle, this story of survival is so well done, and I appreciated Brittany’s vulnerability in sharing her lived experience. I connected to this story in so many ways – as a child, a daughter, and a mother.

Go grab this book. It will move you and have you thinking about Brittany long after the book has closed.

Thank you to Brittany Means, Zibby Books and NetGalley for an advance e-copy of the book for an honest review.

In this gut wrenching book of living life on the run during childhood will have you on the edge of your seat. Brittany has tried to go back and remember the stories of life on the run with her mother. She had very little stability in her life. Her brother shares many of the same stories but also different ones. Reading this book was an eye opener to see what others have experienced and gone through.

This book was really hard to read about. It breaks my heart to see children neglected, put in danger, raised by a single mother with her own mental health issues. I'd like to think this one ends well and maybe the book ends on a happier note, but I fear there is more to come.

It is quite hard to read about the destruction of the family unit and the brutal outcome for children of parents with mental health issues.

The author tells her story honestly and without holding back the details of her life, her mother's life, her brother's life and the boy whose family she lived with that needed some serious help and was mentally torturing her.

Sadly, this won't be a book that I will recommend.

Thank you Net Galley and Zibby Books for an advanced copy of this e-book.

Brittany Means had such a rough childhood. This book left me feeling really down. It’s an exercise on bravery.

“Where we were going or why didn’t matter to me. I never knew, and when I asked, it was only to hear her voice when she answered, “To hell if we don’t change our ways!”

Every time a read a memoir like this, I just want to hug the little child that experienced so much hurt and pain. Listening to the audiobook read by the author takes that pain to a whole other level. Brittany Means tells the story of her childhood with a grace and poise I doubt I would posses in her situation. There’s a lot of hard in this book (see the content warnings below), but Brittany is on the other side now, which makes the hard topics palatable.

Rating:
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Read if you like:
Memoirs
Overcoming adversity

CW: child physical and sexual abuse, addiction, suicidal thoughts

Thank you Zibby Books for an ARC and ALC through Libro FM

With raw emotion and dry wit Brittany Means tells the story of her traumatic childhood in her memoir HELL IF WE DON’T CHANGE OUR WAYS. Brittany came into this world as a result of a sexual assault from a man with unknown heritage. As her single mother struggles with addiction and mental health issues leading to a nomadic life of poverty, Brittany is left to make sense of her heritage, identity and find her voice amidst the generational trauma.

I’d highly recommend the audiobook narrated by the author with a brief cameo from her brother. This is a hard story but one that is not devoid of hope and redemption. Pick up HELL IF WE DON’T CHANGE OUR WAYS now or add it to your Nonfiction November lineup!

RATING: 4/5
PUB DATE: October 3, 2023

Many thanks to Zibby Books and Libro FM for an electronic ARC and ALC.

Blurbs by Kiese Laymon and Jeannine Ouellette landed this book on my list of most anticipated memoirs of fall. That should have been my tip-off to expect an intense read. For those who are easily triggered, please proceed with caution. This memoir contains few places to rest between events and confronts a strong cocktail of trauma—sexual abuse, addiction, poverty, racism, and religious extremism. With that being said, Means has constructed a work of art from her life. There are admirable literary nuggets throughout. I absolutely adore the closing scene. I suspect her story will help many others feel seen and less alone in their recovery. For readers who haven’t experienced this magnitude of trauma, Means’ memoir is an important window into the invisible pasts so many people carry with them on a daily basis. Thank you to NetGalley and Zibby Books for the opportunity to read in exchange for an honest review.

Abuse is never easy to read about, as someone who can relate to Brittany Means more than I care to admit, I know how hard this memoir was to write. Hell If We Don’t Change Our Ways will punch you in the gut, ripe open your heart and make you ask the question “Why?” more times than you’d care to do. But within the pages is also a message of hope and survival. A brutal read that is well crafted, well laid out and worth your time.

Thank you Zibby Books for the ARC.

If this same exact book had been fiction, I would have said, "It's too much. Too much tragedy. Too much neglect. Too much squalor. Too much abuse. Too much to be believable." The fact that it's a memoir crosses the line from unbelievable to downright heartbreaking. So much of this book was hard to read and, as a mother, I could not wrap my head around someone treating their children the way Brittany's mother treated her and her brother. It's a wonder that, based on her childhood experiences, Brittany did not completely lose her faith in humanity and was able to let people into her life and learn to trust them. There were so many negative paths she could have gone down, but the fact that she chose to go to school and focus on education speaks volumes about her will to take control of her life. I was also thrilled that she had such a good friend in Shirley and that they stayed friends even into adulthood. Though it was a tough read, it was a very powerful book that I highly recommend.

Brittany Means spills her life's truths in the supremely well-written HELL IF WE DON'T CHANGE OUR WAYS. Her memoir of life on the road with a damaged mother and dysfunctional family is a tough one to read, one that opened my eyes and broke my heart, kept me reading with my breath held, reminding myself that Brittany is here today to share the story. Her courage in naming the events, parsing the details, and sharing the wealth with us is admirable -- I had to put the book aside at times, while she is the person who could not stop living the story and experiencing the wild and tumultuous times she lived, somehow being the resilient and optimistic person who made it through. I received a copy of this book and these opinions are my own, unbiased thoughts.

Brittany Means shares her life story her childhood trauma.This is a raw intimate look at what she suffered.She has written a very brave book she survived overcoming so much.#netgalley #zibbybooks

The limitations of memory is one of the challenges of memoir, particularly when trauma leaves gaps. What I really appreciated about this harrowing, haunting, and hopeful memoir is how Means handles the limitations of memory. She makes them transparent, which allows the reader to feel, at least a little, the discombobulation of not really knowing your own life. Means also does a wonderful job of sharing how normal abuse and neglect becomes, how used to things a child can grow, and how that carries into their adult life.

This was a very difficult read because of the trauma and abuse Means experienced and recounts. But it's a worthwhile one that introduces a writer whose work I'll be following.

Thanks to Netgalley for the advance copy.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this book in exchange for an honest review.
I'm always amazed by the honesty and emotion that survivors of childhood trauma express in their writing. I hope it was helpful in her healing and understanding to write this book.

It amazes me every time I read a memoir that includes childhood trauma. There really is not too much I can say other than Brittany (the author) is an incredibly strong woman. Even if she doesn’t believe it. She has endured so much and now has a life and a career and people to share it with. Her story is sad, but she is a survivor.
Thank you Netgalley for the e ARC.

This is a powerful memoir that will stay with you long after finishing the last page.

Brittany Means' life story almost doesn't feel real. As the reader, you don't want it to be real. You don't want an innocent child in the custody of a mother struggling with mental illness, drug addiction and abusive relationships with men. You don't want to believe a child had to regularly experience the multi-layered effects of being unhoused. You don't want to believe the abuse she experienced by the adults and young men in her life occurred because it is so upsetting.

And yet, I never wanted to put this book down. I never wanted to look away from these painful, intimate experiences Means writes about because intertwined with these horrors, are moments of great love and caring, resilience and creativity. Brittany writes about her life experiences and the people who shaped them from a place of deep emotional intelligence and sensitivity. This book reflects her remarkable ability to transcend an unimaginable childhood, while harnessing the gifts her experiences rendered.

HELL IF WE DON'T CHANGE OUR WAYS makes for an excellent book club selection. There's so much to discuss! How does the U.S.'s unspoken caste system and consequential economic hardships play a role in victimizing the less privileged? Why doesn't our government offer universal health care system to protect our children when experiences like Brittany's are on record? Why are judgements clouded when it comes to they hypocrisy of some organized faiths? How can we tap into our imaginations to help us transcend our respective challenges in life? How did Brittany find the courage to forgive and share her story? Whatever the answer may be, I'm glad Brittany did write her memoir and I'm excited for memoir lovers to read it.