To think Torey Hayden

[Bottleofbeer]

Is self congratulatory, vacuous bore who probably made 99% of it up?

[roomonthebroom]

YANBU. At all.

[Rockmaiden]

YABU I love Torey Hayden's books, no idea how much is true but it reads well and is interesting.

[squeakytoy]

YANBU, the first book was ok, but then she got a bit carried away... and the whole "misery book" market is so completely overwhelmed with everyones "life story" now, that you do wonder how many of them are actually factual, not many I suspect.

[Bottleofbeer]

If it's not true they shouldn't be sold as such.

It's not possible that they're all true. She only worked on special ed for six years, how many books are out?

[Grabaspoon]

I thoroughly enjoy her books and aspire to be like her in the classroom - even if I don't have the patience that she obviously has.

[mrsscoob]

I'm sure I read somewhere once that she's English and worked in England but writes her books as if it happened in America, for the American readers. Something like that anyway!

[gapbear]

I enjoyed the first one, but after that it felt a bit "Look at me, aren't I brilliant?"

I'm also suspicious about how much happened the way she said it did - look at James Frey and 'A Million Little Pieces'.

YANBU

[controlpantsandgladrags]

I enjoy her books but I don't believe for a minute that the content is completely accurate.

[pranma]

I love her books and read the first ones long before she became popular.I gather she now lives in the UK but is American and the books relate to her career in the 1970s.I think there is some tweaking but they are basically true-much better than so many of the 'misery memoirs' that are around nowadays.

[comfort15]

I agree with gapbear-she comes across as "ooh I'm the only person who worked out what this child really needed, I'm so brilliant" Having said that though, I've read about 3 or 4 of her books and can't put them down until I've finished. Make of this what you will!

[PaisleyLeaf]

I read 'One Child' (is it?) in the early eighties. I would imagine it'd seem really dated now. If I were to read it again as an adult I'd probably also feel that she's a self congratulatory, vacuous bore.

[olderandwider]

I loved her books and never assumed she was making anything up, at least not in the sense that events never happened at all.

Her follow up of Sheila from One Child was a kind of anticlimax (no happy ending) which made me think that that story at least was mainly true.

I tried to read her one attempt at a novel. Awful.

My old pyschology teacher thought she was brilliant.

[olderandwider]

psychology

[Bee7777]

I like to read true life stories, I've just finished reading The Mega Pig File- that was such a sad book, couldn't put it down. But can anyone tell me if books by Torrey Hayden are nonfiction or just made up??