Raised in Ruins: A Journey of Resilience and Overcoming Adversity in Memoir Form

Kindle Customer: Tara Neilson's family moved to a remote area of Alaska when she was a young girl. The site her parents chose to lease from U.S. Steel was an abandoned cannery which lay in ruins due to a fire. Not to be deterred, her hard-working and innovative parents came up with a plan for both temporary housing and a permanent structure, and the whole family was involved in making the dream come true. While Tara's father worked away to have an income during the week, her mother home schooled the kids. Tara and her 4 brothers and sisters, and often their similarly aged cousins who would come to visit, learned to thrive in their remote outpost. The cannery ruins became their personal playground between lessons and helping with chores. They could spend hours building forts, fishing, sword fighting, and playing make-believe. When weather and wildlife chased them indoors, they turned to books, movies, music, and storytelling. They learned to ration food, conserve generator power, and work cooperatively. They learned to stay safe from wolves and bears, hunt, fish, and garden, and they flourished in the freedoms this way of life offered. It was nonetheless a hard life, as children and parents alike...

United States on Oct 05, 2023

Anita Dow, The Martian Diaries sequel to The War Of The Worlds: This memoir is so engagingly written it could almost be a fiction book. Author Neilson, who records her early life growing up in a remote area of Alaska, explains early on why she chose not to write in a chronological way. Initially I thought that would be confusing, but actually it works beautifully, and soon I felt I was getting a privileged close-up view of all the seven members of her immediate family. Ms Neilson's mother tended to take any family photographs, and we get a glimpse of not only significant events, but their everyday life – which is pretty extraordinary by most people's standards. We learn about the logistical difficulties of isolated living (in the ruins of an abandoned salmon cannery), including the various methods of home schooling that the five children experienced. Fixing up living quarters in a precarious climate and remote location was a hazard in itself. But this family had the same wants, needs, joys, triumphs, and sorrows as any other family – just all made many, many times more difficult due to where they lived.
Author Neilson has a very warm, readable writing style that drew me in immediately and towards the end I felt quite emotional that...

United Kingdom on Aug 19, 2022

Bryan Quinn: Unlike the scripted cable shows featuring families living off-grid in Alaska, RAISED IN RUINS brings to life the harrowing and sometimes hilarious experiences of surviving against the forces of nature, whether they be storm surges or brown bears. The writer has woven a rich and memorable tapestry filled with sensory imagery that transports a reader across time and space.

A 5-star recommended read.

Canada on Aug 19, 2021

Nicola: The author of this book immediately gripped my attention and sparked my imagination as she took my hand and led me in through a time-tunnel, stepping out at the other end into a whole other world full of fun and exciting adventures. Sound familiar? - it's not. It is so much deeper than that.

Many a time I laughed out loud, and many a time my heart sank with raw sadness. I experienced fears of things alien to me and yet, my perception of control and of time began to morph as I found myself intrigued by new concepts, wanting to soak it all in, absorbing not just the thrills and adventures but also this whole new way of both thinking and surviving.

Tara highlights not that anything is just simply possible or achievable, but demonstrates how to make it so, should you so choose. This is something that ordinarily does not come easy, is outside of ones comfort zone and, in these global times in which I write this review, reaches and inspires me on a level that I had never believed possible.

As much as I loved the thrills and adventures and the highs and the lows, the memoir as a whole filled me with wonder, opening up both my mind and my imagination long after I'd...

United Kingdom on Sep 28, 2020

Gary E. Eddey: Outstanding!

Raised in Ruins is Tara Neilson’s memoir of growing up, and continuing to live, in a difficult environment of a different sort. Her Mom and Dad (burnt out from the Vietnam War) move from Montana to Alaska and decide to homestead on a small peninsula, yards from an old burned out cannery. The site is on Union Bay, not to far from Meyers Chuck, and located on the mainland. To the east is the Coast Mountains which separate Alaska from Canada. By any stretch of the imagination it is as dangerous and remote a place to raise a family of five as anywhere, except perhaps on a glacier in Patagonia. Her Mom and Dad pulled it off, and we learn how they adapted and what it took to do so. Difficult environments can teach us how to adapt, hopefully in a good way.
Tara is the hero of the story, but she has a cast of many others. I’m writing this review on Father’s day and so I single out her father who demonstrates above all else a perseverance that makes Churchill’s phrase “never, never, never give up” a kindergarten phrase. He’s driven to care for his family that he and his wife raise on Union Bay. We learn that he is devoted through action, not oratory....

United States on Jun 22, 2020