Freckled

By TW Neal,

Book cover of Freckled

Book description

For fans of The Glass Castle and Educated, comes mystery author Toby Neal’s personal story of surviving a wild childhood in paradise. We never call it homeless. We're just "camping" in the jungle on Kauai...

We live in a place everyone calls paradise. Sure, Kauai’s beautiful, with empty beaches, drip-castle…

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

Why read it?

2 authors picked Freckled as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

T.W. Neal grows up with parents who opt to live on a sparsely populated Hawaiian island, not wearing clothes, surfing, smoking Marijuana, and eating magic mushrooms. The family lives in a van or in housing with few modern amenities and the author attends school on the island only sporadically. Due to her mother’s mental illness and her father’s alcohol abuse, she at times, has to run the household. With difficulty she connects with relatives and a few teachers and begins to reach for a lifeline to break free from the life her parents chose. She wants to go to college…

I was attracted to the word “wild” in the title of this childhood and youth memoir. It’s stories by a girl, Toby Neal, whose parents were hippie surfers on the beautiful and empty beaches of Kauai, Hawaii, during the 1960s and 70s. By most people’s standards, they’d be regarded as negligent parents, even more so today. Living day to day, they didn’t care about giving her a proper home or food. But they loved her and gave her great freedom to explore. She learned how to survive, building her life skills. The other thing about Toby Neal’s memoir is that…

From Neill's list on memoirs of childhood and youth.

Want books like Freckled?

Our community of 12,000+ authors has personally recommended 80 books like Freckled.

Browse books like Freckled

Book cover of Educated: A Memoir
Book cover of Rust Belt Boy: Stories of an American Childhood
Book cover of Boy: Tales of Childhood

Share your top 3 reads of 2024!

And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.

1,487

readers submitted
so far, will you?

5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in authors, Hawaii, and hippies?

Authors 198 books
Hawaii 60 books
Hippies 55 books