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A Story of Survival, Recovery, and the American Dream
by Jessica Hoppe
An unflinching and intimate memoir of recovery by Jessica Hoppe, Latinx writer, advocate, and creator of NuevaYorka.
In this deeply moving and lyrical memoir, Hoppe shares an intimate, courageous account of what it means to truly interrupt cycles of harm. For readers of The Recovering by Leslie Jamison, Somebody's Daughter by Ashley C. Ford, and Heavy by Kiese Laymon.
During the first year of quarantine, drug overdoses spiked, the highest ever recorded. And Hoppe's cousin was one of them. "I never learned the true history of substance use disorder in my family," Hoppe writes. "People just disappeared." At the time of her cousin's death, she'd been in recovery for nearly four years, but she hadn't told anyone.
In First in the Family, Hoppe shares her journey, the first in her family to do so, and takes the reader on a remarkable investigation of her family's history, the American Dream, and the erasure of BIPOC from recovery institutions and narratives, leaving the reader with an urgent message of hope.
"Hoppe debuts with a bold and illuminating account of getting sober and her attempts to 'decolonize recovery' by deconstructing ingrained narratives about people of color and substance abuse... She presents her findings in sharp, forceful prose, effortlessly weaving together her personal story and her insights into the intersection between race and sobriety. This is essential reading." ―Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"[A] stunning...deeply moving memoir about how understanding our histories—both present and past—allows for recovery and healing rooted in the politics of liberation." ―BookPage (starred review)
"An illuminating and intense reading experience." ―Kirkus Reviews
"A gripping narrative of generational addiction... This is an essential read, offering profound insights into the complexities of addiction in families and the often-obscured and difficult path to recovery." ―Booklist
"Jessica Hoppe writes with grace and gripping candor about being the first in her family to recover from addiction in this fiery debut memoir." ―Esquire
"First in the Family is a riveting memoir, but also a tender guide to overcoming ― addiction, trauma, colonialism. It takes a writer with great emotional intelligence and generosity to trace the harrowing moments of her life back to the invisible systems and structures that damage every one of us. Jessica Hoppe has done that more." ―Alejandro Varela, author of The Town of Babylon
"A powerful thunderclap of a memoir, Jessica Hoppe's First in the Family is a rich excavation of one woman's descent into addiction and the power found in laying it all bare. Hoppe's uncompromising voice doesn't hide behind platitudes but gently unravels damaging legacies tied to the 'American Dream' with a much-needed critique of the recovery movement. A triumphant example of hope where breaking harmful cycles is not found in the individual achievement but in a collective one." ―Lilliam Rivera, award-winning author of Dealing in Dreams
"First in the Family is truth-telling at its finest. At once raw and brilliant, Jessica Hoppe's debut memoir breaks not only family cycles, but the cycle of the American Dream: a patriarchal, white, racist, misogynist nightmare that doesn't stand a chance in the face of Hoppe's cutthroat pen. Everyone can learn from this level of honesty. We are fortunate to live at the same time as a writer like Jessica." ―Javier Zamora, New York Times bestselling author of Solito
This information about First in the Family was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Jessica Hoppe is a Honduran Ecuadorian writer and creator of @NuevaYorka. She has been featured on ABC News, and Pa'lante! Max. Her work has appeared in Latino Book Review, the New York Times, Vogue, and elsewhere. Jessica is a board member of Time of Butterflies, a nonprofit supporting families through domestic abuse recovery, and is an organizer with the CentAm & Isthmian Writers group. She lives in New York City. First in the Family is her debut memoir.
Pony Confidential
by Christina Lynch
In this whimsical mystery, a grumpy pony must clear his beloved human's name from a murder accusation.
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