This is one of the best memoirs I’ve ever read. The writing is solid. The timing is perfect. The story produces a rollercoaster of emotions. I will definitely be recommending this one to everyone who will hear me.

Link to socials to come.

Very well written biography about a woman that had a very rough upbringing, and came out well in the end. The book was a rough read, in parts. Her parents had many issues, mentally not sound and addictions on top of that. Thank you to Netgalley for the early read.

An amazing account of the author's life and family. Her resilience in growing up with mentally ill parents is a testament to the underlying love of both her parents and extended family who offered her a semblance of a normal life.

This debut memoir is excellently written and short. I am glad the author was able to heal from her past that was riddled with trauma. I will recommend this to people at my library for a haunting, well-written story of a person that overcame a confusing childhood, raised by mentally ill parents.

This book was beautifully written. I am so glad that I picked this up to read. When I picked this up, I did not realize that it was a true story. I was totally sucked in by the name of the book. Also from a small town, I sunk right into this book from the beginning. The authors storytelling skills are superb. I loved her honesty and that she shared her struggles with us. I hope you will pick up this book!
Thank you, NetGalley, for allowing me to read this book for my honest opinion.

This book reminded me of reading a report from Child Protective Services about one of foster kids. It’s not entertaining.

Between Two Trailers is a book that will stick with me for a long time. J Dana Trent tells the story of her unconventional upbringing in a way that respects the complicated nature of mental illness with the tenacity of the human spirit. It was also a really fun surprise to learn she went to school in Chapel Hill, as I am a current teacher in that district. Helps me remember that I never know what my students may experience outside of the classroom. I recommend this to any lovers of memoirs, people interested in the effects of mental illness, or those who want to be reminded of the tenacity of children.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this book in exchange for an honest review.
I had a hard time getting into this book. I'm not sure why. Maybe the writing style. Maybe something else. But I'm glad I kept reading because it did get a lot better.
I've read a lot of books about children growing up with mentally ill parents but nothing quite like these parents who used their child as a drug trafficker. I'm amazed the parents didn't get caught and their daughter taken away from being around all the drugs and slum trailers.
The dynamic between Dana and her parents was fascinating to me.

I very much enjoy reading memoirs, especially to get insights into people who may be very different from myself. Dana Trent is one such person. She grew up in a very dysfunctional family with parents who had severe mental issues and addictions. As an adult she has obtained a graduate divinity degree and is a college professor. For me she is a sure example of God's grace and calling on a person's life and all of the miracles in life we can find, if only we look for them. Trent had a horrific upbringing, yet she still has come to love her parents and her community of origin.
Trent is an excellent writer and this makes the story even more compelling. It is comparable to the memoir Educated, in my opinion, yet is better because Trent looks much more kindly on her upbringing than does Tara Westover. The conclusion of the book was wonderful: "Home, it turns out, was there all along in my two very loving and unconventional yet faithful parents, who believed in miracles. I am their miracle. I am their legacy. They are my home."
I highly recommend this book. I received an advanced digital copy from the publisher via NetGalley.

This was a very interesting book. Reading about what the narrator went through was both heartbreaking and shocking, but I struggled with some of the jumping around chronologically. There were also a few places that I found repetitive and it was tough by the end to feel like there was any sort of climax or resolution to the story.

This one will be a little difficult to review.
I really liked the stories she told of growing up with King and Lady. This was the majority of the book.
Her childhood was messed up, fragmented, and yet wondrous.
The author writes so beautifully, it was like gazing upon a fine painting.

Then a third of the book was about her and Lady leaving King and moving to North Carolina. There was no preamble, just get in the car, bye.
I kept wondering what had happened that this had happened?
During this section the writing began to go in fits and starts. She was boy crazy but wouldn't define what that was, just that she was a tease and loved the thrill of the chase. Did she have sex? Where was her fist kiss?
At this point in the book, I realized that the reader is emotionally ready to share pre teen childhood, everything after was a minefield, the reader only gets pieces.

Then there was a few chapters on her college years and living with Lady.
Lots of questions in this life phase that the reader won't get answered.

Then she grows up, gets married, and leaves Lady only to find out King dies and then Lady dies.
This is where the writing is basically an axe murderer hacking through the chapters. Nothing is complete, everything is robotic.

I felt robbed. I felt that I had been with Dana through her childhood, through the roughness of college, yet we don't know her husband, how they met, how she got the courage to leave her mom.

I also wanted updates to what happened to Kings trailer, her cousins, her Uncles.

For me, this is a half finished work of the first half of the authors life.

"A preschooler's hands are the perfect size for razor blades," begins Trent. "I know because I helped my schizophrenic drug-lord father chop, drop, and traffic kilos in kiddie-ride carcasses across flyover country." (loc. 88*)

There's an opening to capture the attention if ever there was one. Growing up in Indiana, Trent was schooled from a young age in life lessons: if you kill somebody, do it in Vermillion County; there's only so much sugar in the sack; natural elements are the best weapons; never trust a liar. Her father was convinced that these lessons would not just keep her safe but make her strong, and her mother's focus was primarily on ruling the trailer from the nest of sheets and blankets she built up in bed. They loved her—but theirs was not a conventional love.

"Dad, too busy to bother with me before I could walk, used duct tape to fasten my hands to my baby bottle filled with chocolate milk. I sat on the kitchen counter by him all day, lifting that duct-taped bottle to my mouth and catching his marijuana exhales as weed ash fell onto his open King James Bible." (loc. 113)

"Between Two Trailers" sees Trent through those young years of drug-running in Indiana (the right age for those kiddie rides: "'That ain't no toy!'" her father yelled (loc. 1033)) and off to North Carolina, where her mother relocated the two of them on a whim. A trailer her mother called a shotgun house "because if our enemies sent twelve-gauge buckshot through the kitchen window, we'd drop like dominoes" (loc. 103); ceiling tiles razored to pieces as her father searched for government bugs; apartments in North Carolina subsidized by the extended family as her mother's fortunes—and get-up-and-go—fluctuated.

It is King and the Lady, as Trent refers to her parents throughout the book, who set the scene and rule the roost throughout the book. King and the Lady who define what normal is throughout Trent's childhood and King and the Lady who compete for Trent's affections and future. The book slows down a bit as Trent gets older and dives headfirst into as ordinary a life as she can create for herself and as she moves away from the lessons of her childhood. It's clear, though, that however complicated a childhood it was (and oh man—it was complicated), Trent has come to make peace with that childhood and to embrace her parents for who they were.

Thanks to the author and publisher for inviting me to review this title through NetGalley.

*Quotes are from an ARC and pay not be final.

This was incredibly hard for me to read - not because of the topic but because of how it was written. I felt like I just read a book written by someone on drugs. Each paragraph felt like it was a whole different story/chapter and nothing really meshed well. The timeline of this story is completely off where you're reading about preschool and then back to before Dana was born, then to how the parents met. There’s no definitive timeline. I really really struggled with this, unfortunately because these type of memoirs really interest me.

"Between Two Trailers" is a western Indiana version of "The Glass Castle" and "Hillbilly Elegy". The writing is exceptional. The tale is both heartwarming and heartbreaking. I vacillated between the two. At the end of the book, I paused long enough to realize this is a story of both brokenness and fulfillment; of sorrow and joy; of acceptance and surrender.
A paragraph near the end of the book sums it up: "A person never really misses a little town such as Dana until he's actually away for a while. I'd been missing it for far too long."
This is a five star winner!!

Between Two Trailers follows a young girl raised by a schizophrenic drug dealer who is also a cult leader and a mother with personality disorders. This is a memoir of the hard ships of having two mentally ill parents.
It’s a true inspiration for someone with such a hard childhood to overcome everything that has happened to become the person she is today.
I did feel like certain parts of the book just dragged a bit but it could just be me.

Thank you to Netgalley for the opportunity to read this E-arc for my honest review.
I found this to be a well written memoir but extremely depressing. Our system is completely flawed, a mentally I’ll nurse employed in the psychiatric field, the same woman being treated by many doctors her entire adult life with no decrease in her diseases, a child with mentally ill, drug addicted parents raising her and no one steps in to help her (family, teachers, doctors etc). Everyone failed Dana and this is commonplace for thousands of children in the United States today. Heartbreaking to read this story with no positive outcomes or changes in 40 years. The only positive is the young women was able to become who she is today on her own unfortunately this horrible upbringing cost her stability, love, her innocence and the basic fundamental needs that she deserved. So sad that the author believes her mother was a loving parent.

For anyone who thinks that this book may be a dramatization, as someone who grew up in the rural Midwest this book is gospel. I appreciated how it gave me insight into the upbringings of some of my childhood friends lives, as I lived more on the periphery of it all. I think this book should be required reading for all transplant Midwest therapists who wonder why so many of us struggle to express emotion or abandon our very sick families to take care of ourselves. Trent is so good with vivid imagery and while it was a difficult read I was honored to have been one of the first to read it.

Between Two Trailers was a tough but fascinating read. The amount of pain and negligence the author experienced is beyond measure, but I always find these stories are necessary to be told to a larger public, because there is always someone else out there experiencing similar fates.

Absolutely fantastic book! Could not put the book down once I began reading it. Cannot wait for it to be released. I will recommend it to everyone I know!

I typically do not rate memoirs because it seems a bit sanctimonious however since
this download is offered by Convergent Books, via NetGalley, I’m happy to share my
thoughts about the presentation, if not the story.
First of all, I’m often drawn to titles with their cover art, and this book jumped out
at me. The title and artwork captured me before I’d even looked at the description.
Now, having finished the book, I’m struck by how miraculous it is that a small child,
especially this child, was able to be the parent in her family and have silent influences
that ended up not just saving her, but giving her the internal fortitude to absolutely
soar to unbelievable heights-all while caring for her mother, and managing her father.
At times the story is a challenge- when you’re just afraid for the family, and not just
their mental health, but their freedom.
To make it to the end of the story is like a double rainbow of sorts. I absolutely
recommend this book. And my thanks to Convergent Books, via NetGalley, for
a download copy for review purposes.