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    La Petite: A Memoir of Childhood
    Unavailable
    La Petite: A Memoir of Childhood
    Unavailable
    La Petite: A Memoir of Childhood
    Ebook82 pages1 hour

    La Petite: A Memoir of Childhood

    By Michele Halberstadt

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    In La Petite, the renowned French writer and film producer Michèle Halberstadt vividly recounts the painful events that surrounded the death of her beloved grandfather, which led to a suicide attempt when she was twelve years old. Michèle’s mother favored her older sister, her father was emotionally remote, her teachers dismissive, and her peers a foreign species. Her grandfather alone had given her an image of herself that she could embrace. After he died, there seemed to be nothing left for her. One day she decided that she’d had enough of life. The pills in the bathroom were within reach and the temptation of falling asleep forever was irresistible.
    La Petite is neither grim nor sentimental. Halberstadt, the recipient of both the Legion d’Honneur and the Ordre du Mérite, France’s two most prestigious awards, has perfectly captured the emotions of the little girl she once was. Everywoman will recognize something of herself in this moving story about adolescent grief, solitude, and awakening.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRandom House Publishing Group
    Release dateJul 10, 2012
    ISBN9781590515327
    Unavailable
    La Petite: A Memoir of Childhood
    Author

    Michele Halberstadt

    Michéle Halberstadt is a French journalist, film producer, and author. Her previous novels include Prends soin de toi and Café Viennois. She also produced and co-wrote the movie Murderous Maids (2000). The Pianist in the Dark is her first novel to be published in English; it won the Drouot Literary Prize and was short-listed for the Lila literary prize in France.

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    Reviews for La Petite

    4/5

    9 ratings2 reviews

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    • 5/5
      I absolutely loved this book. i know people feel it is too short or not detailed enough or more should have been said.

      To me it was fine just as it was. This could be because in so many ways I was that same girl, but unfortunately for me, I had no grand revelations at age 12, quite the opposite, at age 12 was when my mother said something so awful, so life changing that it determined the course of my life, as I absorbed it and it became me.

      The revelations she had at 12, I am only baby stepping my way thru at age 55.

      So many of the comments said to her made me sigh, wince or eye roll, they were so familiar to me and her feelings towards those comments too were feelings I had.

      This book is perfect for any survivor of an adult who used put downs and instilled feelings of worthlessness and not making mistakes, but being a mistake.
    • 3/5
      She's a well-known French author and producer, and I guess if I'd heard of her I might have enjoyed this short little book more. It felt rather slight, and while Halberstadt had a remarkable psychological turnabout after her teen-aged suicide attempt, I never quite understood how she recovered from her feelings of isolation that dominated most of the book.