Being Lolita: A Memoir

It’s all about language. It’s all about story. It’s all about telling your own story and not becoming trapped in the one someone else is telling. These are the themes in Alisson Wood’s deeply personal memoir, Being Lolita. 

Victim or whore? Seducer or seduced? In this fantastic book, Wood explores this dichotomy as she shows all her vulnerabilities as a seventeen-year-old high school student, when she became involved with her English teacher. Throughout the book, her story and Lolita’s are entwined, but this is his version of the story. It’s important, we realize, who is telling the story. Wood’s story spans the years her relationship lasted, and she explores the strange and dark places life can go when a person becomes part of another person’s story. Deeply rich in language and perspective, Being Lolita is a haunting page-turner that puts readers on the edge of their seats, much like the original Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov. Wood is a talented writer and engaging narrator, bravely sharing her story in the most eloquent of ways.  You will never read Lolita the same again.