SCPL Online NonFiction Book Club discussion

Although I have been a lifelong reader, I am still always a bit miffed when I find out that I have completely misjudged what a book is going to be like. That's what happened with Lindsay Wong's memoir, "The Woo-Woo". The tag line for this memoir led me to believe that it would be more comical, not quite so dark, and that there would be more growth for Lindsay. However, it just ends up being the recounting of a very sad life that is ravaged by her family's various mental illnesses. For me, right from the start, I found myself starting off on the wrong side, but maybe that's the point?

From the beginning it also feels as if Lindsay is starting off on the wrong side, like she doesn't quite belong as part of the family. One part that stuck out to me was when she was young and recounting how she couldn't see ghosts and how alienated it made her feel from the rest of her family, "As a small child, not having the Woo-Woo power was like not being invited to a birthday party whose host you detested, yet everyone you knew had been invited and came back raving about the laser tag and the seven-layer ice cream cake" (Wong, 25). Ironically, anytime that her family thinks she has been "possessed", like when she has that allergic reaction, they treat her even worse. So this feeling of being on the wrong side lingered with me throughout the book, and it always kept me feeling uneasy, like "Hey this isn't what I signed up for!"

Did anyone else feel uneasy or a bit disturbed while they were reading this memoir? Was it different than what you were expecting to read?