Mary Fairhurst Breen

In Any Kind of Luck at All we meet Mary Fairhurst Breen who has thrown back the curtains to give us an honest view of life growing up in the 70's with a less than picture perfect family. She was surrounded with generations of mental illness, drug abuse, alcoholism and bad tempers. Breen marries young and starts a family and we see the rise and fall of the consequences of that decision in her world.

This portrait is honest and raw, like a tear soaked pillow followed by a blast of dance mix music. She's been through a lot yet somehow remains mostly positive and spins her tale in to one of warning mixed with disco balls and a good sense of humor. Showing the bad as well as the good is part of what makes this story so incredible.

At times it becomes a bit hard to follow as it is not written in a linear fashion and she jumps forward, backward ad sometimes seemingly sideways thorough the years and events in her life. I have to be honest at times this can get a tad annoying as it makes it a little harder to follow; that being said I feel as though it makes the narrative all that much more real. How often when telling a story do you get ahead of yourself? Then something being said sparks a memory from long ago that you just have to mention before continuing on where you were; comparable to late night conversations with your best friend and drawing on the connection and heart swelling love of your this imperfect world. It's messy, it's raw, its the full truth and for that I applaud Mary Fairhurst Breen and her strength in every thing she's done, including writing this book.

Overall I'd give it 3.5 stars. If the writing was a bit more linear it'd be an easy 4.5 in my opinion. Either way its one you don't want to miss it'll have you feeling normal amongst the crazy of family friends and the past year an a half.

Thank you to netgalley, publishers and of course Mary Fairhurst Breen for the advanced e-copy for me to read and write my honest unfiltered review. These thoughts are mine and come from my heart so hopefully you'll see why you should pick up this quirky little memoir as soon as possible. It takes courage and soul to pour yourself on to the page like this and put it out there for the world to see. Help me give the respect it deserves by picking up your copy and hearing what Breen has to say.… (más)