Surviving Crazy: Life With My Mother

Sixteen-year-old Cori Landry knows that her mother is crazy. What she doesn't realize is how crazy. As she writes a compare-and-contrast paper for her English class, settling on the subject of comparing herself with her mother, she realizes that her mother isn't just a narcissist, but has bipolar disorder. Despite seeing the differences between them, handwritten in black and white, she fears the worst, that she may be more like her mother than she thinks.
Her best friend Justin assures her that she is nothing like her mother. She struggles to believe him, acknowledging proof that she is not like Crazy Mom simply because her mind tends to drift back to old memories for lengthy periods of time. She is definitely not like Slutty Mom because she chooses to dress far more conservatively, despite the slutty clothes her mother encourages her to wear that she has either brought home from a church giveaway bin or stolen from a department store. In truth, she is more like Nice Mom whose appearances, unfortunately, are few and far between.
This is the story of a teenage girl who is struggling to survive her day-to-day life with a sometimes cruel and often delusional mother who has convinced herself that, despite living alongside the railroad tracks on Shack Lane, she will someday live just like the Kardashians. Her mother's obsession with the Kardashians is not fleeting. The fact that she named her daughters Kourtney and Kim is proof of that. (This is just one of the reasons Cori is constantly changing her name and hoping to find one that fits.) Her life is even more challenging since she lost the two people who gave her security, her grandparents whom her mother shut out of their lives when Cori was eight and her sister Kim was seven.
Cori learns how to "manage" her mother and be less confrontational. The challenge is to be true to herself at the same time. In learning about her mother, she learns a lot about herself and the challenges of being the daughter of a narcissist. With Justin's help, and thanks to laughter, her passion for soccer, good books, and jamoca almond fudge and chocolate chip milkshakes, and her sanctuary of writing in her journal, she survives. In the end, due to her resilience and Justin's dedication and love for her, she finds a way to live a normal life, finally reuniting with the grandparents whom her mother had banished from their lives eight years ago. Crazy as it seems, she even allows herself to have hope that her mother might heal enough for them to have a relationship. Maybe.