Reviews

Reviews of This Life Is in Your Hands

Book Riot

April 18, 2016
Kim Ukura:
100 Must-Read Memoirs

Washington Post

April 24, 2012
Review by Nora Krug:
Book World

Book Riot

December 15, 2011
Review by Kim Ukura:
Best Books of 2011

Eagle Tribune

November 27, 2011
Roundup by Teri Schlichenmeyer:
Seasons Readings: Gift Guide 2011

Julie True Kingsley’s Blog

September 28, 2011
Review by Julie True Kingsley:
My Pick for a Great Read!

The Writing Life Too Blog

August 21, 2011
Blog by Jessica Morrell:
On Writing Hard Truths

Go LocalProv, Providence, RI

August 16, 2011
Roundup by Robin Kall:
Well Read: 8 Great Memoirs

Down East Magazine

July 21, 2011
Review by Agnes Bushell:
Family, Food, and the Farm

Publishers Weekly Blog

June 24, 2011
Blog by Josie Leavitt:
A Very Personal Event

Maine Organic Farmer & Gardener

Summer 2011
Review by Tim Nason:
Reviews and Resources

UVM Alumni Magazine

June 19, 2011
Review by Amanda Kenyon Waite:
Alumna Tells Story of ‘One Dream, Sixty Acres, and a Family Undone’

Burlington Free Press

June 19, 2011
Review by Melissa Pasanen:
Organic Farming Guru’s Daughter Shares Story

Burlington Free Press

June 19, 2011
Article by Melissa Pasanen:
Maine Author’s Book Features Vermont Farmers

The Oregonian

June 4, 2011
Review by Peggy McMullen:
Hot off the Presses

The Aspen Times

June 2, 2011
Review by Stewart Oksenhorn:
Reality Check

Los Angeles Times

May 29, 2011
Review by Susan Salter Reynolds:
Discoveries

Tuscon Citizen

May 25, 2011
Review by Larry Cox:
Recommended New Memoirs

DAVE FM

May 25, 2011
Radio Interview with Mara Davis:
Interview with Melissa Coleman

Grist

May 24, 2011
Article by David Gumpert:
Family (farm) affair

New York Times Book Review

May 8, 2011
Review by Megan Mayhew Bergman:
A Memoir of Living off the Grid

Here and Now on NPR

May 5, 2011
Radio interview by Robin Young:
A Family’s Utopian Dream, Unravelled

Bangor Daily News

May 1, 2011
Review by Aislinn Sarnacki:
Freeport author travels back to the land to dig up a family past in a memoir earning national esteem

IndieBound

May 1, 2011
Indie Next Pick from IndieBound:
May 2011 Indie Next List

New York Times Bestseller

May 1, 2011
E-Book Nonfiction bestseller:
E-Book Nonfiction List

Portland Press Herald

April 30, 2011
Interview by Meredith Goad:
Author Q & A: 20/20 Version

207 on WCSH Channel 6

April 19, 2011
Interview with Rob Caldwell:
Author Melissa Coleman

NPR

April 12-18, 2011
Review by Rachel Syme, books editor:
What We’re Reading

Live Work Portland

April 17, 2011
Blog by Chad Frisbie:
Even When The Writing Gets Lonely, The Writers Are Not

Boston Globe

April 10, 2011
Review by Kate Tuttle (scroll down):
Short Takes

Entertainment Realm

April 10, 2011
Review by Amy Steele:
Book Review

Powells.com Guest Blogger

April 9-15, 2011
A week of blog posts for Powell’s Books in Portland, Oregon:
Powell’s Blog

New York Times

April 7, 2011
Review by Janet Maslin:
Back-to-the-Land Life Recalled in Dark and Light

A Design So Vast

April 6, 2011
Review by Lindsey Mead:
This Life Is in Your Hands

Portland Phoenix

April 6, 2011
Review by Deirdre Fulton:
Back to the Land: Digging up cathartic childhood memories

People Magazine

April 5, 2011
Review by Ellen Shapiro:
People Pick

Marie Claire

April 2011
Review by Kimberly Cutter:
Need to Read

O, The Oprah Magazine

April 2011
Excerpt from the book:
Into the Woods: An Idyllic Life in Rural Maine Undone by Tragic Loss

Maine Magazine

January-February 2011
By Debra Spark
Recent, New, and Forthcoming: The Latest from Maine Writers

“Intense readability . . .haunting power . . . as well as lush, vivid atmosphere that is alluring in its own right. . . . Coleman’s memoir is not one of trendy virtue, but of authenticity.”

New York Times Book Critic

- Janet Maslin

“Combine the sincerity of Thoreau’s Walden with the poignancy of Jeannette Walls’s The Glass Castle, add dashes of the lush prose found in Michael Pollan’s The Botany of Desire, and you end up with Melissa Coleman’s This Life Is in Your Hands. From first to last, I was engaged and deeply moved by this evocative tale of Paradise found then lost.”

–Author The Hour I First Believed, I Know This Much Is True, and She’s Come Undone

- Wally Lamb

“A dream, a family, a heartbreaking tragedy–and a book I could not put down. Melissa Coleman’s memoir of a back-to-the-land childhood is fresh, organic, and gorgeously written.”

–Author of The Law of Dreams, The O’Briens and Carry Me

- Peter Behrens

“With beautiful lyrical prose, Melissa Coleman shows us what life in a 1970s back-to-nature farm was like, and the dear price her family paid pursuing their dream.”

–Author of The Red Thread and The Book That Matters Most

- Ann Hood

“Melissa Coleman’s enthralling account of 70’s back-to-the-land living is an important cultural and emotional document: this is a story about surviving and, eventually, thriving amidst the shadows of loss.”

–Author of The Uses of Enchantment and The Folded Clock

- Heidi Julavits

“Lyrical and down-to-earth, wry and heartbreaking, This Life Is in Your Hands is a fascinating and powerful memoir. Melissa Coleman doesn’t just tell the story of her family’s brave experiment and private tragedy, she brings to life an important and underappreciated chapter of our recent history.”

–Author of Little Children, Election, and The Leftovers

- Tom Perrotta