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| About the Book |
Author: Carolyn Niethammer
Book Title: Everything We Thought We Knew
Publication Date: May 1st, 2025
Publisher: Booklocker
Pages: 254
Genre: Historical Fiction
In 1970, Christie left behind the comforts of L.A. and joined a New Age commune in rural Arizona. With the Vietnam War raging and the counterculture movement in full swing, she hoped to find a community to create a better society. But building a new culture is no easy task, especially when free love, psychedelics, and a war protest gone horribly wrong are thrown into the mix. Important secrets follow them beyond the commune.
Put on your tie-dyed shirt and come to Bella Vida as the friends try to change the rules of modern society, then face the repercussions of when middle age sets in.
Buy Link:
Universal Buy Link: https://books2read.com/u/3GZ6ra
Author Bio:
In the 1970s Carolyn Niethammer visited communes throughout the West and settled in an Arizona artists’ community for many years. Those years were important to who she became as she learned to gather wild foods and wrote several cookbooks centered on edible plants.
In “Everything We Thought We Knew” she hopes to shed light on an important part of American history where young people were advocating for peace in Vietnam War protests and fled to communes, seeking a lifestyle apart from the commercialism and isolation that had overtaken society.
Author Links:
Website: www.cniethammer.com
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| My Thoughts |
Definitely a very apt title!
I wasn't initially sure about this one, not especially being interested about American rural Arizona life during the 1970s at the time of the Vietnam War, or in USA New Age communes ... but I was pleasantly surprised to discover an absorbing read.
This was the time I remember as San Francisco 'Flower Power' hippies, free love, LSD, bright coloured tie-dye kaftans and Greenham Common protests against CND. (Not that I took part in any of that here in England - too shy, naive, and too wrapped up in my horses.) However, I found this tale of Christie and her experience of an Arizona Commune to be engrossing. Maybe the unfolding events and their repercussions and consequences were predictable but that didn't matter.
The hippy escapism life was well described, along with the 'free' idealism. Was commune life nothing more than a smoke and mirrors illusion that the 1970s created alongside the rose-tinted glasses of a self-sufficiency dream, where, in reality, 'free love' had consequences and money was necessary after all. But to balance that, there was also the down-to-earth side of carefree joy, with interesting people doing interesting things; of an unconventional lifestyle and spiritual beliefs.
We see things through Christie's eyes, and the reality of a life which was vastly different to the hippie ideal of a perfect, untroubled paradise never before experienced by young people where the strict restraints of the pre-60s were making a start at being kicked aside. (Although one can argue there's still a long way to go in many areas of equality and 'freedom!)
The changes of point of view were a little irritating. I think the author could have stayed with Christie throughout, and I also found April to be irritating. No spoilers, but she did ASK...
So, an entertaining read about the history of the hippy years of the 1960s and '70s.
I read an early copy, which I assume was a PDF ARC as the formatting was muddled in places, and there were a few typos and continuity bloopers (I became her, for instance). Hopefully sorted by another edit before final publication.
**** 4 stars
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