When the going gets tough, the tough get therapy.

America the Beautiful

When her boyfriend Jasper unceremoniously dumps her - by fax - America Throne temporarily loses the will to live. As she descends into a self-destructive cycle of bitter recriminations and increasingly threatening phone calls to her recalcitrant ex, unresolved feelings about her famous dead father begin to surface. Luckily her plucky best friend, Sadie, her rather more practical musician brother, Spoonie, and her emotionally oblivious mother, Camilla, are all on hand to kick America out of the rut and back into shape.

This being California, America's journey back to wholeness involves some not entirely conventional twists and turns, including dodgy therapists, communal retreats, a pathetic one night stand and Madame Barbara's House of Mystery. America the Beautiful is a trip to the wilder shores of the West Coast, infused with the engaging wit and exhilarating emotional honesty of a brilliant and original new writer

I bought this book simply because of the author. I've seen Moon Unit interviewed on number of occasions and found her to be funny and intelligent, not to mention having a bunch of cool stories about her unconventional upbringing. When I saw she'd written a book, how could I resist? I've only read the first couple of pages so far and I'm enjoying it so I'll write more when I've got into it more.

November 23rd 2000
Middle of Chapter Six

I love this book so far! Moon has the most fantastic writing style, a little wordy at times, but passionate and descriptive. Anyone who has totally failed to read the signs of an ending relationship will be caught by the second chapter. The title character, known as Mer, blindly plans her future with the obviously distant Jasper, you can't help but cringe knowing the all too familiar fall ahead of her. For me her immediate impulse to buy vast quantities of chocolate, followed by a touching and funny scene with the shop keeper, had me laughing out loud.

Later we are introduced to what seems like a selfish and somewhat oblivious mother, by way of a phone conversation. The conversation is hilarious.

The book so far is witty, clever and all too human.

December 28th 2000
Beginning of Chapter Twenty Two

Despite taking me so long to read (I have a feeling I'm unconsciously savoring every moment of this book) America is a real joy. Mer's grief, though somewhat obsessive, over the demise of the doomed relationship with Jasper was heartbreakingly familiar. Her lurch back into the land of dating via a therapist called Karl who seems far too good to be true, not to mention a little freaky. We meet a coffee shop guy who you know has to be important real soon as he's the first guy we've met that Mer doesn't instantly imagine marrying.

And then there's Jym (with a why!) I hated him instantly, and Mer was already writing their married names out before their first date! It is doomed, it has to be, how could it be anything else? But Mer doesn't notice the early signs...or the later signs...or even the really obvious signs when he tries to move her out of his place. The guy's a creep!

What Moon manages to do so successfully is write about the feelings and emotions up to, during and after  relationships in an honest, almost therapeutic way. 'Oh God, I do that' Is uttered often. It's funny, it's wonderfully well observed and a really great read. Can't wait to see if she ends up with coffee bar guy...I hope so.

January 1st 2001
The End

I was there with her right up until the meditation retreat. It seemed like maybe I wasn't the only hippie kid in the world who was a little embarrassed by all the communal nudity. Like I wasn't the only one completely disillusioned with health food and psychics. And then Moon went and blew it! The perfect opportunity to expose all the hippie 'finding yourself' nonsense for the self-indulgent tosh it is and instead she bought into it! I was a little disappointed by that as you can tell:) The end was satisfyingly sentimental, everyone lived happily ever after and Mer even confronted her feelings surrounding her father's death. In fact there were no loose ends to speak of at all.

This book made me think a lot, remember a lot and was more an experience than a relaxing read. It made me examine my own feelings about growing in a commune with parents who embodied the spirit of the hippie movement long after the summer of love had faded into the winter of discontent. It got me thinking maybe there were more kids out there like me, who felt that rebellion was not only unnecessary but futile. Instead of asking 'what have you got?' asking 'what is there left? It felt reading this as though at last there was someone else who was at least in the same book as me, if not on the same page.

The meditation retreat reminded me of the feminist retreat we visited when I was a tiny thing, where nudity was the common uniform and boys over 10 weren't allowed in certain areas. Where I had a birthday and the kitchen staff made me a cake...in the shape of a vagina. In retrospect it must have taken a huge amount of hard work to mix up all those different colored pink icings, but it still seems to me a little inappropriate.

This book made me remember being taken to parties and being put to sleep in unfamiliar beds as music and laughter drifted up from the bowels of the house. Trying to sleep whilst cocooned in a sleeping bag knowing that soon enough mum would come and carry me to the car and take me home. I wondered if this is why I worry about noise at night so much and hate restless nights with such a passion.

It answered the question 'is it just me?' who despite having parents that would think nothing of stripping naked and sunbathing on the nudist beach would rather die than get naked anywhere but in the bathroom. It isn't just me! It got me thinking maybe there was a whole generation of people with hippie parents that are fighting with the demons of their dodgy childhoods.

I loved this book with a passion, the only thing I didn't like was the way Mer bought in to the hippie spiritualism that I was hoping she'd greet with the same cynicism she saw in all the other pretensions. But no. She got herself a guru, had an enlightening experience and found herself...ahhhhh!!!!