I've read many books and memoirs, but few as memorable and gripping as Monica Holloway's Driving with Dead People: A Memoir. It begins like many before it. The author introduces you to herself as a youth and the strange family and surroundings that are imprinted in her mind. The difference is that while there are plenty of books that point out a family's eccentricities not many compare to Holloway's.

Her father's bizarre hobby of video taping local tragedies and disasters, of which her neighborhood seemed to have more than a fair share, mixed with a history of abuse and parental indifference leads Holloway to an obsession with death. Befriending a mortician’s daughter, her playground is a casket room and later her job, a driver that picks dead bodies up from the airport. As adults, she and her older sister recover repressed memories of being sexually abused as children. And despite the soul-rocking realities of her young life, she becomes a remarkable, successful driven woman.

This book is shocking, not only because of the tragic, disturbing story, but also Holloway's grace and even humor as she reveals what would leave many a quivering mess. Her mother's selfish immaturity. Her father's sick obsessions. Wondering if she were better off dead.

This book is a true hero story of overcoming a beginning so painful you almost don't want to believe it. If you want a page turner, Driving with Dead People won't disappoint. Your jaw will drop. You'll laugh out loud. You'll shake your head with tears in your eyes. This book will move you for sure.