Brittany Means has pieced together the shards of a devastating childhood in this powerful memoir. It’s gut-wrenching but at the same time triumphant, harrowing yet exquisitely told. Hell If We Don’t Change Our Ways is a story of survival that left me choked up and cheering.”
–Jeannette Walls, author of The Glass Castle
“Hell If We Don’t Change Our Ways will change the way readers understand what, and if anything, actually survives our childhoods. What is a parent? But the book's lasting impact might be what it demands of the memoir genre. Brittany Means has, at once, created the most readable and the most psychologically rigorous book I've read in decades. I needed the reminder that art can do this.”
–Kiese Laymon, author of Heavy
“There are all kinds of memoirs, but some should be read by every person who ever thinks to write or read one. Hell If We Don't Change Our Ways makes that list. What Brittany Means accomplishes on the page, telling the truth of her own life, the brutality and beauty of it, with the prose of a recovering poet, is often attempted and rarely successful. This memoir is a success all the way down.”
–Ashley C. Ford, author of Somebody's Daughter
“Hell If We Don't Change Our Ways is a memoir that balances a real generosity for the self, a real generosity for the world the self existed and exists in, but it is still sharp, stark, honest, and operates with an enviable clarity. The writing expands lived emotions that people often flatten: sadness, fear, pleasure. Within that expansion, a reader is offered an entire universe.”
–Hanif Abdurraqib, author of A Little Devil in America
“So vivid is the writing, that at moments, I had to look up from this memoir and remind myself that I was not in the car with Brittany Means. . . . With heart-wrenching honesty, Means explores and reveals the violence that afflicts many children today. Her first-hand account is a testament to the resilience of children, but also a revealing telling that calls us to account as a country and people where too many children fall through the cracks in their profound suffering.”
–David Ambroz, author of A Place Called Home
“Brilliantly paced, impeccably written, and truly moving, Hell If We Don’t Change Our Ways is storytelling at its most powerful and most vulnerable; through each scene of brutality and betrayal, Brittany Means shows us the extraordinary lengths we often must go to find humanity, forgiveness, and trust.”
–Susan Steinberg, author of Machine
"This book is an outstanding debut…A harrowing and soulful memoir to be read, savored, and reread."
–Kirkus Reviews (starred)
Starred Kirkus review
