All About Her? Two biographies of modern women

Recently I read two interesting biographies, Perfectly Imperfect by Lee Woodward, and Dead End Gene Pool by Wendy Burden. Both reflected very different women, but both were fascinating and resonated in different ways with me.

Lee Woodward is the wife of Bob Woodward, and writes incredibly well. Its a mix of humor and seriousness, about raising kids, finding out her daughter is deaf (guess which part was hard for me, personally, to read?), and about the agony of how her life was changed when her husband was injured. She writes about some things that are almost tradition, that you wouldn't even think about until later, like a jewelry box, and how it can show not only who you were at different stages in your life, but how you can pass that on to your children, and how it can create a link, even when its not there. She writes about some of the myths and truths of modern women, and it was just very good, and very uplifting. A portrait of a warm, close-knit family.

Burden's memoir reflects a very different childhood and life, that had some strange echoes of my own, in some ways. While I enjoyed it, I felt she took some cheap shots and was very superficial about the memoir. There were fart jokes in there (which I felt were unnecessary), and I found it very depressing. There is having a sense of humor, and then there is bitterness, and this oozes a caustic bitterness, anger, and loss.