Freckled - (Memoir) by Tw Neal (Paperback)
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<p/><br></br><p><b> About the Book </b></p></br></br>Born in 1965 to hippie surfer parents who just want to ride waves, use substances, and hide from society, red-headed Toby grows up as one of only a few hundred Caucasian "haole" people on the rugged, beautiful North Shore of Kauai, Hawaii. "I wish I could turn time into honey, and watch it drip by." Told from the immersive, first-person view of a child experiencing turbulent times as they occur, Freckled will take you on a journey you won't soon forget as Toby catches an octopus with her bare hands to feed the family, careens on her first bike down a rugged dirt trail deep in the jungle, and makes money by selling magic mushrooms to a drug dealer. Living in tents and off the land without electricity or communication with the outside world, Toby escapes into reading to deal with racial harassment and indifferent parenting. Toby's idealistic parents, breaking away from high achieving families, struggle with mental health and addiction issues as they try to live according to their own rules. Despite the hardship and deprivations of life on Kauai, they return again and again to an island whose hold on them is more powerful than any drug, as sensitive and resilient Toby clings to a dream of academic achievement and a "normal" life.<p/><br></br><p><b> Book Synopsis </b></p></br></br><b><i>For fans of The Glass Castle and Educated, comes mystery author Toby Neal's personal story of surviving a wild childhood in paradise.</i></b><p><b>We never call it homeless. We're just "<i>camping"</i> in the jungle on Kauai...</b></p><p>We live in a place everyone calls paradise. Sure, Kauai's beautiful, with empty beaches, drip-castle mountains, and perfect surf...but we've been "camping" for six months, eating boiled chicken feed for breakfast, and wearing camouflage clothes so no one sees us trespassing in our jungle hideout. The cockroachesï¿1/2leave rainbow colors all over everything from eating the crayons we left outside the tent, and now a tractor is coming to scrape our camp into the river.</p><p>Standing in front of the tent in my nightgown, clinging to my sister as we face the tractor, I know my own truth: <i>I just want to be normal.</i></p><p>But Mom and Pop are addicted.<br>Addicted to Kauai's beauty, to drugs, to surfing, to living a life according to their own rules out from under their high-achieving parents' judgmental eyes. I'm just their red-headed, mouthy, oldest kid. <i>What I want doesn't matter.</i></p><p>But I'm smart. I will make a different life for myself someday if I keep up my grades no matter what happens.<br>No matter how often we run out of food.<br>No matter how many times I change schools...or don't go to school at all.<br>No matter how many bullies beat me up for the color of my skin.</p><i>I might be growing up wild in Hawaii, but I have dreams I'm going to reach, no matter how crazy things get.</i> <p/><b><i>"An affecting and riveting chronicle of a singular childhood that evokes the contradictions of hippie utopian ideals in an unspoiled Hawaiian landscape long since lost."</i> Kirkus Reviews</b>
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