Nonfiction: First in the Family by Jessica Hoppe

The full title of today's book is First in the Family: A Story of Survival, Recovery, and the American Dream. In this book, Jessica Hoppe explores in detail her journey through addiction and ongoing recovery, and what it took as the Latinx daughter of immigrants to openly face, and be able to talk about, what was happening.

Genre, Themes, History: This is a nonfiction book that opens with Hoppe admitting to being an unreliable narrator, and that the story will come in fragments. She will talk about her birth in San Antonio, Texas, but also reach back even further to her mother's early life in Honduras and how her parents met in the U.S. The details of her addiction and relationship with Alcoholics Anonymous (commonly known simply as AA) also comes in fragments, as does her complicated relationship and feelings about her story, her family's story, and the struggle to acknowledge it all, much less talk about it openly. Hoppe rounds everything out with research and the history of AA, as well as America's war on drugs, and also colonization.

My Verdict: This book is all the things a memoir should be: honest and with a great deal of research behind it. Hoppe did the work of going through her family's history, as well as interviewing those still living, even if the memories may be uncomfortable. The book confronts both the lack of stories from diverse voices regarding addiction and substance abuse, and the narrative this country has written regarding minorities and the war on drugs. There are moments early on in the book that felt less honest and genuine: moments when it seemed that the flawed idea of "the American Dream" and the myth of the exceptional minority were to hold all responsibility for Hoppe's experience. Later, there is deeper discussion of the research and history Hoppe discovered, even into the founding of AA, that is interesting and probably not widely known. 

Favorite Moment: At several moments, Hoppe points out just how easy it is to tell lies about yourself, and at the time, whole-heartedly believe them. 

Recommended Reading: When Crack Was King by Donovan X. Ramsey is an in-depth look at the crack epidemic of the 80s and 90s, as well as a reevaluation of what happened.