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LaRue Agresti

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Boomer Tales: Hula Hoops, Hippies, Hemp, and Hijinks Kindle Edition

by LaRue Agresti (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

4.1 129 ratings

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Author LaRue Agresti captures the essence of a generation in this vivacious memoir.

As related in Boomer Tales, LaRue was born in Chicago in 1949. Her whimsical narration describes growing up in a wacky Italian family, complete with intriguing background material on her parents and their families, and speaks candidly of her mother’s battle with mental illness.

After chronicling her early years in Chicago, Boomer Tales goes on to provide a window into the Windy City’s turbulent social and political climate during the 1960s.

In the chapter titled “Key Lime Pie,” LaRue offers a vivid time capsule of the pot-infused 1970s hippie culture in the form of original letters sent from the Florida Keys to her sister back home in “Bummer City.”

But life brings her back to Chicago, and the 80s usher in an emotional time, as she contends with the difficulties of parents afflicted with cancer and Alzheimer’s disease.

Throughout the book, LaRue provides rich descriptions of her lively hometown, and her inclusion of the music that resonated with her peers helps bring her portrait of a baby boomer vibrantly to life.

Editorial Reviews

Review

She is a fine narrator who will hold the reader's attention .Kirkus Review I really loved reading this book. You know why? LaRue Agresti told her story with all her heart, and you can feel that in her words. She tells her story so eloquently, and that makes it an extra special book to read. I was laughing, crying and smiling throughout. Miss Agresti has a gift and I am so glad she decided to share it with us., Reviewed by Readers Favorites This is a fabulous book that takes you on a wonderful adventure! Great read and awesome present! There are lots of smiles in this book. Highly recommend! D. Doyle amazon Reviewer. LaRue has a freestyling writing ability that grabs you right from the beginning and takes you swirling from one chapter to the next. It doesn't matter whether you are Italian or not, different culture, different ethnicity, it was the crazy 60's that was the common denominator that bonded us all.R Hurc Amazon Reviewer I started and ended this book today and what a page turner. You are a great narrator of your own story and you tell it with such humor and grace. As a storyteller, you have managed to describe your cast of characters in your life with such color and describe the events in such detail that I felt i could picture and feel that time again. DLR Amazon Review The author writes easily and well. It felt like I was listening to a friend. She has lots of hard times but doesn't particularly dwell on them.She just kept a-going. What era she lived through. F.N. Amazon Reviewer An unforgettable trip through the 60's and beyond.Through her breezy style, she tells a series of brief stories, which like an impressionistic painter eventually combine to create a pointillistic picture of her early life. Often funny and sometimes sad, these vignettes are a series of brief stories many of which are remarkable in their realism and linger with you long after finishing it. Brad S. Amazon Reviewer Captivating! Very well written, a book that helps the reader live through Chicago life in the 60's and 70's in the eyes of a free-spirited woman overcoming adversity in her family life as well as adapting to many moves as a young child transitioning to adulthood with her experience leaving home to follow her heart. We are able to see the internal dynamics of a Chicago Italian family and get to know LaRue's animated father as well as experience life with a mentally challenged mother. LaRue demonstrates her ability to embrace the moment, fleeing where the wind takes her without looking back. This book inspires us all to take a leap of faith, enjoy the moment, and have no regrets. Michele Amazon Reviewer. Must Read for Chicago Boomers! This is a great read! I'm a Boomer who grew up in Chicago so there are a wealth of things in this book to relate to. The author is a lady who has led a full life which she relates with warmth and humor while not sugar coating any of the rough patches she encountered. Highly recommend this book to all Boomers, anyone with connections to Chicago, and anyone who enjoys a good biography. T. Murphy Amazon Reviewer Great book, great read! I highly recommend this book. Vivid characters that "live out loud" kept me reading way later than planned. N.F. Amazon Reviewer Loved this Book! It was entertaining and a quick read! An interesting life! I would highly recommend this book. It was definitely worth reading. I spent a rainy Sunday enjoying it. S.Horn Amazon Reviewer This book truly is a treat ! The authors' life takes many twists and turns from trying to make sense of her psychologically ill mother during her pre-teen years at a time when nobody talked about mental illness to partying with the hippie counterculture and later raising her daughter among a real life colorful cast of characters. Agresti embraces every humorous moment of her interesting life. I finished the book wanting to read more. G.M. Walsh Amazon Reviewer

About the Author

Born in 1949 to an Italian family, LaRue Agresti grew up in Chicago.

Her varied career has included work as an accountant, a barber, a public relations firm owner, and a designer.

Today, she resides in Geneva, Illinois, and on a sailboat in the United States Virgin Islands.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B017M7RK06
Publication date ‏ : ‎ November 4, 2015
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 642 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 170 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #295,998 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #2,755 in Memoirs (Kindle Store)
- #4,646 in Biographies & Memoirs (Kindle Store)
- #10,517 in Memoirs (Books)

Customer Reviews:
4.1 129 ratings

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LaRue Agresti

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LaRue has had a variety of careers including an accountant, barber, cosmetic trainer and model home decorator. She now works st what she loves, writing. She is an Art Deco collector and loves antiquing and resale shopping. She resides in Geneva Illinois and on her sailboat in the U. S. Virgin Islands. Most of her writing is done while in the Carribean Sea.

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4.1 out of 5

129 global ratings

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Virginia Specht

Excellent read

Reviewed in the United States on April 30, 2024

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This author shares her freewheeling days of life in the Chicago area in the 60's and 70's!! Each chapter is an inspiration. I loved it!!

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GranJan

Growing Up 1950's and Coming of Age 1960's If You Lived It, Will Feel Like a Flashback!

Reviewed in the United States on April 24, 2017

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This is a fascinating memoir! The author's family history is fascinating and would make a great novel on its own. Her tales of growing up an Italian Catholic in Chicago is a great look into the 1950's. Her next step of hippies, drugs and a somewhat nomadic life through the 1960's and into the mid 1970's is told exactly like it was. The final portion of life through the 1980's is fairly sparse in details. The story reads like a magnified diary. It is very interesting, but I would have preferred more detail. In that regard, it is much more a Memoir than a Autobiography. I think I liked it because I could relate to so much of it. I am not sure if it has enough detail for someone who is not familiar with the time period. I got a little confused a few times and had to go back and see who certain people were. There were also a couple of things that were alluded to that were never explained.

2 people found this helpful

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Aimee Schlueter

An Unforgettable Trip Through The '60's

Reviewed in the United States on November 20, 2015

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LaRue Agresti's book takes you on a psychedelic trip through the '60's and '70's that begins in Chicago, but eventually takes you along on her travels and experiences in the Florida Keys and Hawaii. Her autobiographical tale serves to both open the time capsule to an exciting time in our social history as well as how all these events affected a young girl as she matures into a young woman.
Through her breezy style she tell a series of brief stories, which like an impressionistic painter eventually combine to create a pointillistic picture of her early life. Often funny and sometimes sad, these vignettes are a series of brief stories many of which are remarkable in their realism and linger with you long after finishing it.
The book takes you on a journey that begins with her early life with a challenging mother and supportive father and the interesting characters that populated the many ethnic neighborhoods her family lived in. It continues and carries you through her years as a maturing teen documenting the tumultuous times of social unrest in Chicago during the '60's as well as her eventual exposure as a young woman to drugs, sex and partying in the '60's along with the accompanying destruction they ultimately caused. It describes how her first marriage was partly a casualty of the times, but that the birth of her daughter and the many responsibilities of motherhood may helped her steer a saner course throughout the period. Part of the book is told through a series letters sent to her much loved younger sister who lived in Chicago while Agresti and her young daughter lived in a communal hippie crash pad in the Florida Keys.
Agresti's humorous take on these situations and her strong loving relationships make this an enjoyable trip through a colorful social period.

3 people found this helpful

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Debbie

More for early Boomer generation

Reviewed in the United States on July 23, 2019

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The story itself was much as I expected. There were many things that brought back good memories, but once you got past childhood it was nothing but drugs. I am at the end of the Boomer gen so I did not experience that like the author would have in her time of the Boomer gen. I was most turned off by all the profanity...and most shocked I did not stop reading it after the first “GD”. Would most likely be more appreciated by early Boomer gen readers.

Reviewed in the United States on November 21, 2015

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Very well written book which helps the reader live through Chicago life in the 60's and 70's in the eyes of a free spirited woman overcoming adversity in her family life as well as adapting to many moves as a young child transitioning to adulthood with her experience leaving home to follow her heart. We are able to see the internal dynamic of a Chicago Italian family and get to know LaRue's animated father as well as experience life with a mentally challenged mother. LaRue demonstrates her ability to embrace the the moment, fleeing where the wind takes her without looking back, establishing new places to call home with new found friends, and learning many valuable lessons along the way. This book inspires us all to take a leap of faith, enjoy the moment, and have no regrets.

2 people found this helpful

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Amazon Customer

A strange book about a strange life

Reviewed in the United States on September 15, 2016

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A strange book. Enlightening about the time period it is set in. Some accounts are very detailed, while others are just skimmed over. It ended rather abruptly. I also found all the detailed accounts of all the drug use and relationships a bit tiresome, it seems to merge and just repeat the same scenarios. But I did finish it and enjoyed it.

5 people found this helpful

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Francie Nolan

Baby Boomers Will Love This, Especially those from Chicago, and Anyone Interested in that Era

Reviewed in the United States on June 21, 2016

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I enjoyed this book. I'm from Chicago and a baby boomer, too. Although I lived in different neighborhoods and my family had a much easier time financially than hers, I totally dug all the local references and appreciated the "groovy" era in which she was a teenager. I was born too late to hang out at the Kinetic Playground. Man, that sounded fantastic! I can't imagine The Doors and Janis Joplin, etc., actually playing locally. I remember Piper's Alley the way it was in the 60's, but when I worked at Barbara's Bookstores in the early 80's in Old Town--so much had already changed. (There was still a head shop next door, though, and Bizarre Bazaar and The Fudge Pot down the street, and of course, Second City.)

The author writes easily and well. It felt like I was sitting and listening to a friend. She had a lot of hard times, but doesn't particularly dwell on them. She just kept a-going. Quite resilient I think. What an era she lived through. The best music in my opinion. I am seven years younger so I was stuck with a lot of seventies music for my teenage years. But how well I remember the sixties--even watching The Beatles on Ed Sullivan.

Any Baby Boomer will enjoy this memoir, particularly Chicago Baby Boomers. I felt the ending was too abrupt. An Epilogue or Post Script on what she's doing now would have been great, and maybe even an About the Author page. I could have also done without the entire quoting of her friends' letters from Europe. They sounded like a riot when the author described the kind of funny, original, unexpected things they'd do, but their letters didn't come across the same way--although I appreciate and respect how much the author loved them. They were wonderful friends.

Recommended.

2 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

C. Saunders

An interesting history

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 4, 2017

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This was interesting to me as a baby boomer, albeit one from the UK. There isn't a lot similar to my experiences but I have known people who had a similar life style to the author. I found it fascinating and nostalgic

Karl Wiggins

Lacked the Boom Boom!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 28, 2018

Verified Purchase

I don’t want to knock this author, but this book just wasn’t very good. It’s a kind of reminiscence of growing up in the Boomer Years, but really it’s just, “We did this, we did that, my grandmother this, Rudy did that.”

I was hoping for a bit more oomph!

Sorry LaRue Agresti, it didn’t do it for me

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Boomer Tales: Hula Hoops, Hippies, Hemp, and Hijinks Kindle Edition

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