I always love other people story! This memoir is of the life of a woman that just wasnt capable of loving people.

It was sad and just makes you want to get mad at the character. This story makes you feel what alot of other woman feel around you.

Would recommend and i liked the writing.

Thanks NetGalley for letting me read and review.

At first, I wasn't sure if this would be a book that I could get into. However, Megan's story ended up captivating me. As I read though, I couldn't help thinking, has she never heard of birth control? Her family was a dysfunctional mess and her mother belittled her non-stop. As a result, Megan looked for love and acceptance by becoming pregnant over and over again with irresponsible men, hoping she could make a family.

Megan suffered during her young life, but raised her two sons, worked at a hospital, and attended school. Always reflective about her life choices, the men who abused her, and her relationship with her mother, Megan was determined to be a better mother than her own. Through her introspection and belief in herself and a better life, she finally ended the hellish cycle she had been in..

This memoir showed the life of a woman that tried to love people that weren’t capable of love. Albeit sad and frustrating at times it does depict life for a lot of women in our communities.

I really wanted to like this book because the premise sounded so intriguing to me but I’m not sure if it’s the way it was copied over or if it’s just the style of the book, but it was hard for me to read. The story is really sad, being 19 and a mom is crazy, having no support from anyone has to be a nightmare and thinking adoption is all you can after you have a baby? I can’t even imagine. Then signing your rights over for you baby for 10 weeks, I could never, I never understood how moms could join the military. I also couldn’t imagine getting an abortion because your boyfriend wanted you to just for him to leave you, ugh my heart breaks. Overall, this book really does tell a heartbreaking story about a girl who turns into a woman while growing her son

"It had taken us just that one time for me to conceive, my being too stupid to understand that all Adam wanted was to know how good it felt to shoot his baby-making juice outside the constraints of a condom." Not You is a memoir about a damaged woman, Megan Harris M. who uses her reproductive capacity to try and ensure love and stability after a loveless childhood. It doesn't work out well, across a series of men, and for her children, both living and stillborn who clearly aren't ends in themselves but means to ends. Megan also experiences domestic and family violence at the hands of one of these partners, and struggles to leave his orbit through the effects of coercive control.

There's no denying Megan's mother was awful to her, including by suggesting ways to make suicide a success. However it's also hard to deny Megan's mother was right about how Megan uses pregnancy: "turn me into some kind of stupid but cunning, woman who could only be as ambitious as her vagina allowed, like I didn't have anything else going for me. So yeah, lie down and get pregnant, and then use the baby as an excuse." Megan presents this viewpoint as totally untrue, but in the next breath, gets pregnant again and says: "I was incredibly elated that I would finally be tied to him forever."

I found Megan hard to like in Not You. Her claims of being "a shitty-ass mother for subjecting my son to his lifestyle of crime" were thin and unconvincing. Ditto moments of self-realisation: "I had become a human parasite, and never realised it." Despite her own actions relating to using her reproductive capabilities, Megan is very quick to judge a Mexican woman who pretends she is pregnant to get food and a place to sleep. Not sure it was necessary to throw in the racism about her percentage of Mexican blood, I think the publisher should have picked that up.

In my opinion, Not You is bleak, and poorly written, annoyingly repetitive in many places. The only characters you're likely to end with any sympathy for are Megan's children. They were robbed of childhoods as Megan ignored their needs while trying to fill the gaping hole in herself by using their presence to trap men: "I was basically a ward of the state looking for anyone to adopt me and my child." It's hard to relate to someone who sees human lives as hooks to get her own needs met by a disappointing series of men.

Even the drama about the teen abortion that begins the book feels disingenuous. Megan had no trouble later in life doing exactly the same thing with a new partner, "terminating our pregnancy at his request", but was more upset about not realising "at the time that ending the life inside of me was just the beginning of the end for me and him" than the loss of any potential child. Despite all this, there is no excuse for domestic and family violence. So, I am glad, particularly for the kids, that Megan got out of the dangerous relationship, and got her life together and started to address her obvious need for therapy. I hope it works out and it helps Megan close the door to more dangerous men.

A story of extreme struggle and also one of hope. This memoir was heartbreaking to read at times but I was always amazed at the author’s determination and strength. The writing is incredible and descriptive. It felt like I was right there with her in these situations of despair. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.