Girlbomb: A Halfway Homeless Memoir

by Janice Erlbaum

Book Overview

Just two hours ago, I had been heating up some lentil soup at my mom's in Brooklyn, thinking I'd eat it and maybe read some Edith Wharton before bed. Now here I was at a runaway shelter, staring at a... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0812974565
• ISBN13: 9780812974560
• Release Date: March 2007
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.3" x 7.9"

Customer Reviews

fast and furious: girls only

this read is fast, i tore through this one in 3 hours. the writing is beautiful, and janice makes it so easy to visualize what she's describing. it made me happy and mad and so, so many other feelings. a must-read for any young woman

This book is the BOMB!

Girlbomb is an amazing book, and I highly recommend it. The fact that it is a memoir by Janice Erlbaum is great because it really gives you a hands on perspective of the main character. As a female, I was able to relate to Elrbaum on so many levels. Yes she was going through a great deal, but at the core she was a teenage girl, experiencing life as we all do. Not to downplay anything she went through, because honestly I don't know how I would have been in her situation, but as I said she is easy to relate to. Reading this book, I went through an array of emotions...from anger, to happiness, to vulnerability, to love, to jealousy...you name it, you'll find it in Girlbomb. When I realized the book was coming to a close I was sad because I wanted to read more!!! Again, I gove this a million thumbs up. I was lucky enough to meet Janice Elrbaum and she is as real as her book, she is an amazing author, and I look forward to reading anything else she may come out with. So go and put this in your shopping cart, you won't regret it!!!

Girlbomb on Target

When a writer can compel you to read on with seeming ease, when you can recognize something of yourself in each of her characters, when dialogue rings true every time, when the writing is clear and insightful, you know you're dealing with a genuine talent. Every page of this memoir of living on the streets of New York City in the 1980s rings true, and rings powerfully due to the forthrightness of Erlbaum in telling the details of her story, and her directness in expressing it. If I were all thumbs, I'd give it 10 thumbs up!

A Jolting and Compelling Account

The book, Girlbomb: A Halfway Homeless Memoir, tells the story of 15-year-old Jan, whose serially marrying mom has latched onto a real jerk of a man. She finally tells her mom to make the choice: Him or me. And when the mother chooses the guy, Jan goes from heating soup to grabbing her backpack and walking out the door. She manages to find a shelter, where she stays for several weeks. This is not a sugar-coated story. This is a story of other residents threatening her with knives. Racial tensions. The very young girl who slips away and later is spied at a Port Authority men's room, clearly prostituting herself. Jan bonds with some girls who disappear from her life. It's not a great place to be. Her next step is a group home, which is slightly better. Except by now, Jan has discovered night clubs and cocaine and cigarettes and booze. One element to the story that strikes me as so interesting, having never been a homeless teenager on the streets of New York, is how Erlbaum kept her act together. With very little structure in her home, when she had a home, and then living in a shelter, Erlbaum managed to go to high school. She maintained school friends. She was in the school play. She got into college. She eventually had a somewhat longterm and loving relationship with a guy. But the lifestyle extracted a toll. She had sex with boys she didn't like, much less love. She had drug problems. Her friends were unsupportive. She lied, and she stole. At times, the book feels like a cautionary tale, a relatively modern-day and truthful Go Ask Alice. Other times, the book feels like an exploration of dumb luck. You steal from work, but skip going the day they make arrests? You leave home, become "halfway homeless," but manage to score a leading role in the school play and get into college? You leave your friends, and by minutes you miss the guy having the mishap that leaves him in a coma? Sometimes the book seems to rise above the specific matter of Erlbaum, New York City and homeless youths. I personally felt the book echo in my soul. The issues of sexuality, of confusion, of friendships, parent-child relationships, of high school reputations and repercussions could have been my issues in the suburban Midwest in the same era. I kept having this sense of deep memories being shaken loose. I used to get fed up, wanted to run away, get out, go to New York and try things on my own. In Girlbomb, I see what I would have been up against. I didn't know whether I would have been friends with young Janice, or been terribly afraid of her. She wasn't always the sweetest and nicest girl, the true-blue friend or the ideal daughter. It's an honest book, one that neither apologizes nor brags about the facts. Let's not forget this: When we read a book where the subject is so compelling, it's very easy to overlook the writing. When we talk about this book, we tend to discuss the story, the social implications, the woman who is now Janice Erlbaum. We rarely talk ab

Articulate, Witty, Unassuming

Articulate, witty, and unassuming, Janice Erlbaum has presented her audience with a masterwork. She guides us through the roughest times of any young woman's life - namely, high school. Of course, a memoir focusing only on the difficulties of, say, cheating one's way through Chemistry while starring in the Drama Club's Spring production, wouldn't capture us in the way that her "halfway homeless" memoir does. We're invited to tag along as young Janice finds herself alone in Manhattan after following through on an ultimatum given her mother. From a Catholic teen runaway shelter, to an Upper West Side group home, to a Lower East Side studio, Erlbaum illustrates the confusion, the adaptation, the pain and the humor through which she must wade in order to find the girl in the mirror who keeps reminding her that she is still fragile, somewhere behind all the bravery. "Girlbomb" is a powerful read that will touch teens, mothers, those who've overcome their own personal struggles, and the rest of us, who just like to peer at the trauma and humor that forever mark the lives of the fiercely independent. With this, her first book, Erlbaum has triumphed as neatly in the publishing world as she did years ago in the New York City of the mid-eighties. And best of all, this memoir is verifiably true!

Brutally honest and wonderfully sardonic

There are moments when you want to just cry but then Erlbaum exposes herself in such a genuine manner, adding her inimitable touch of humor, that you find yourself laughing at the most bizarre circumstances. Which is much like life because sometimes you have to laugh or you are gonna cry--or worse. Thankfully Erlbaum didn't go for worse, learned how to laugh at herself, and dared to share her story with the world. It should be required reading for any young woman trying to make sense of herself, her world, and her life. Why? Well she won't find the answers to the life, universe, or anything . . . but she might find it okay to look at herself in the mirror and smile. Thank you, Janice, for sharing yourself.