Hell Camp

by Niki Smart

Overview

"Hell Camp": How to chew on a crazy childhood and avoid choking!
It took a few years before Smart could see the funny side of having a mother who ran over the crossing guard, collapsed onto the baggage carousel, extinguished candles with her bare stomach and crashed cars on a regular basis.
Growing up with a mother suffering from borderline personality disorder had its fair share of excitement, bizarreness, and flat out madness. Add to this the fact that she grew up in South Africa during the “Kill a White Man” era; a time when the entire country had gone mad, and this should give you a rough idea of the chaos that reigned supreme in "Hell Camp" - a nickname her younger brother bestowed upon their rental home in Johannesburg.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940015922004
Publisher:	iMay Productions
Publication date:	11/05/2012
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	275
File size:	989 KB

About the Author

Niki Smart lives in Laguna Beach, California. Writing has been Smart’s therapeutic tool for many years, except she usually wrote in the form of “song” writing. Smart released three CDs and had several of her songs chart in her native South Africa. After putting down her guitar, Smart began writing, and “Hell Camp” is her first book. And hopefully, like her music, it will make you feel like singing...loudly!
Smart also works part-time at a youth shelter for emotionally disturbed teenagers and teaches yoga.

Editorial Reviews

Rare is a story so authentic and true. The authors honesty and humor throughout this story is riveting. Could not put this book down, awaiting to see how our heroine turned out. This is a story about survival, the triumph of the human spirit, and finally about forgiveness.
Set in a unstable region, one feels this pulse thru out the story. Thank you, Niki, for allowing us to not feel shame about our own crazy childhoods. How brave you are!!

Book Cover - Lauren Howell

Niki Smart is living, thriving proof that transformation is possible and that a horrendous childhood can be overcome. Living with a bizarre, scandalous, mentally ill mother incapable of mothering, Smart plunged into darkness to anesthetize her pain. Smart spills out her intense, cringe-provoking tales. While her own behavior is shocking, and her mother’s borders on criminal, Smart’s spot on, spunky, self-effacing humor keeps her story from turning into a “poor me" saga.

Laguna Beach Independent Newspaper - Robin Pierson

Niki Smart's turbulent upbringing in South Africa is just about the craziest I’ve ever read and I’m still not sure how she lived to tell the tale. “Hell Camp” features one of the most maniacal mothers on the planet, too many death-defying experiences, many of them self-inflicted, and all this within the political upheaval of Apartheid. Smacks of real life and is sometimes laugh-out-loud funny. And this story, unlike “Gone Girl”, is redemptive.

OC Book Blog - Randy Kraft

The most riveting, turbulent and redemptive literary ride since The Glass Castle; Smart has more than a compelling story, it's so unbelievable, it must be true. She has the gift of expression. Like stones, you feel her roll the words around in her hand and rearrange them for your pleasure. Hell Camp will provoke you to care deeply about characters you’ve never met, and it will give you the outcome you find yourself praying for. Pick this book up. This is a read that has no rivals.

Book Cover - John Parenti

"Hell Camp" is recommended as a "hot summer" read - “Hell Camp” (self-published), served as a cathartic experience that helped her see the funny side of growing up in South Africa during a turbulent time and with a mother who suffered from borderline personality disorder. “It had its fair share of excitement, bizarreness and flat out madness.” She recounts crazy moments, emotions, struggles—and ultimately, survival.

Laguna Beach Magazine - Ashley Breeding