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    I Wore the Ocean in the Shape of a Girl: A Memoir
    I Wore the Ocean in the Shape of a Girl: A Memoir
    I Wore the Ocean in the Shape of a Girl: A Memoir
    Audiobook8 hours

    I Wore the Ocean in the Shape of a Girl: A Memoir

    Written by Kelle Groom

    Narrated by Joyce Bean

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    At the age of fifteen, Kelle Groom found that alcohol allowed her to connect with people and explore intimacy in ways she'd never been able to experience before. She began drinking before class, often blacked out at bars, and fell into destructive relationships. At nineteen, already an out-of-control alcoholic, she was pregnant. Accepting the heartbreaking fact that she was incapable of taking care of her son herself, she gave him up for adoption to her aunt and uncle. They named him Tommy and took him home with them to Massachusetts. When he was nine months old, the boy was diagnosed with leukemia-but Kelle's parents, wanting the best for her, kept her mostly in the dark about his health. When Tommy died he was only fourteen months old. Having lost him irretrievably, Kelle went into an accelerating downward spiral of self-destruction. She emerged from this freefall only when her desire to stop drinking connected her with those who helped her to get sober.

    In stirring, hypnotic prose, I Wore the Ocean in the Shape of a Girl explores the most painful aspects of Kelle's addiction and loss with unflinching honesty and bold determination. Urgent and vital, exquisite and raw, her story is as much about maternal love as it is about survival, as much about acceptance as it is about forgiveness. Kelle's longing for her son remains twenty-five years after his death. It is an ache intensified, as she lost him twice-first to adoption and then to cancer. In this inspiring portrait of redemption, Kelle charts the journey that led her to accept her addiction and grief and to learn how to live in the world.

    Through her family's history and the story of her son's cancer, Kelle traces with clarity and breathtaking grace the forces that shape a life, a death, and a literary voice.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateJun 30, 2011
    ISBN9781452673424
    Author

    Kelle Groom

    Kelle Groom is the author of three poetry collections, Five Kingdoms (Anhinga, 2010), Luckily (Anhinga, 2006), and Underwater City (University Press of Florida, 2004). She has been published in The New Yorker, Ploughshares, and Best American Poetry 2010, among others. Her work has received special mention in the Pushcart Prize and Best American Non-Required Reading anthologies.

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    Reviews for I Wore the Ocean in the Shape of a Girl

    4/5

    15 ratings4 reviews

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    • 5/5
      I loved the fluid perspective of the story, of going back to the past and using the insight of the present to shine on the path that would be trudged in the future. The subject surpassed being just about an addict or woman or mom or anything else, to become a story about a healing.
    • 5/5
      Everyone has a story to tell. Kelle Groom goes beyond that. She tells a tragic story in painful increments of beautiful prose. The result is an amazing book by a very special woman.At the very early age of 15, Kelle finds alcohol as a way to express her. She loses herself to it, not realizing it until it is too late. Already an alcoholic, she has a baby at the age of nineteen. Her family supports her, as her aunt adopts the infant. Adding more sorrow to Kelle’s painful life, the baby is diagnosed at nine months with leukemia, and dies at 14 months of age. Kelle loses him twice.Already out of control, Kelle is in a freefall downward spiral, fast on her way to self- destruction. It takes the real desire to stop drinking and the connection with the right people who can actually help Kelle attain sobriety.This is a unique story on many levels, all heart-rending, all gut wrenching. But at the very heart of this book is Kelle the mother, who survived it all, who needed acceptance and forgiveness ultimately from herself.She did survive, and she found the courage to share her story. She gives hope a new voice. You cannot read this book and not be somehow changed by it.
    • 4/5
      What a devastating and miraculous story that Kelle Groom recounts about her history as an alcoholic through short essays that reflect her poetic background. The book goes into detail about why she drank and how she needed to drink to feel that she was alive and connect with people. Other drugs didn't work for her the way alcohol did. She further spirals downward after she becomes pregnant at nineteen, gives the baby up for adoption to her aunt and then the child dies from leukemia. Through all of this mayhem, she still retains her voice to tell the story of her life. Her parents stick by her and try to get her help through out her ordeals with alcohol while remaining silent about their own issues and her father's ill health. I did like this book even though it was a difficult read and I had to take breaks in between each chapter. You can imagine that the journals Groom wrote were somehow infused with the alcohol she drank at times. There is a bit of skipping around in the timeline which made it easier for me to read this one chapter at a time and digest it as I went along. I am so glad the Groom slowly comes to terms with what happened to her in her life and survived devastating things like her rape, the loss of her son and the sadness that really enveloped her life. There is redemption at the end!
    • 4/5
      This book is a memoir. It was written by a poet, and it's easy to see that in the writing. This was not an easy read by any means. The narrative flows from point in time to point in time with regularity. The book tells the story of an alcoholic, through her treatment and relapse(s). However, most the narrative involves the son she gave up for adoption to her aunt and uncle. Her son dies very young of leukemia, and her desire to reconnect with this missing part of her self directs her actions throughout her life.Honestly, I don't really feel qualified to review this book. I'm not even sure I got it. This book felt so dark through most of it, as if she could never chase away her demons. I almost want to talk to her now, and see if she has found any peace. Despite all this, I found myself in tears at the end, and not necessarily sad ones. It's not a clear cut happy ending, but I did find some comfort.The writing is very stylized. Although I find the subject matter difficult to read, the world themselves were beautiful. It's easy to see the poet coming through. While this isn't going to be a fun read necessarily, I do think it is worth reading. There is some satisfaction at seeing her work past her alcoholism and learning more about her son. So while it's not a breezy read, I did enjoy it.Galley provided by publisher for review.