Review of Heartwrenching Memoir, Reckless Grace : Nicole Pyles

I’m part of the Reckless Grace blog tour for WOW! Women on Writing. I’m so excited to share this book with you. It has a very powerful message and I hope you add it to your reading list.

First, here’s a bit about the book:

Fourteen-year-old Rachel guards a collection of secrets for ten years, journaling to vent her terror and loneliness.

Following Rachel’s fatal overdose years later, her mother, Carolyn DiPasquale, stumbles upon her daughter’s diaries. Shattered, she searches for answers, retracing her steps to figure out how parents and doctors missed three major mental illnesses.

What the single, working mother recalls is a far cry from what happens, as dramatically revealed in tandem chapters gleaned from Rachel’s journals. While the mother sprints from task to task, the daughter details the baffling emergence and frightening progression of bulimia, diabulimia, and borderline personality disorder; her eventual substance abuse; and heart-wrenching reasons for not seeking help.

Despite her loss, DiPasquale hopes her story lights a path for victims of mental illness while awakening all readers.

Purchase a copy of Reckless Grace on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Bookshop.org. You can also add this to your GoodReads reading list.

My Review

Wow, what a book. It starts and ends painfully, but honestly. The author draws you into the unfolding drama that happens in her life. She brings us into the rawness of her daughter’s circumstances with her own observations of what unfolded as a parent along with what her daughter went through privately, as written in Rachel’s journals. The whole time it’s difficult to read but very well written, very real, and very important.

For a lot of people, the journey of mental illnesses, drug abuse, and eating disorders doesn’t have a good ending. And my heart broke for both Carolyn and her daughter Rachel. This isn’t going to be an easy book to read but it’s a powerful book. It’s something to read if you are entering into the mental health field, or have a family member battling their own issues like the ones Caroyln faced with her daughter.

Don’t miss this book!

About the Author

Carolyn DiPasquale grew up in Franksville, Wisconsin, graduating from UW-Milwaukee with a double major in English and French. In 1983, she moved to Rhode Island where she raised three children while pursuing her Master’s in English at the University of Rhode Island. Over her career, she taught literature and composition at various New England colleges; worked as a technical writer at the Naval Underseas Warfare Center in Newport; and wrote winning grants as a volunteer for Turning Around Ministries, a Newport aftercare program for ex-offenders. She has been an active member of the Newport Round Table, a professional writing group (founded in 1995), since 2013.

DiPasquale currently lives in Richmond, Rhode Island where she has started working on a sequel to Reckless Grace. She has also ventured into writing children’s books. In her free time, she enjoys cooking and baking with healthy ingredients, hiking and trapshooting with her husband Phil, and volunteering at the New Hope Chapel food pantry in Carolina, Rhode Island.

Visit her website to follow her updates. You can also follow her on Instagram or Facebook.