Purchased from the MFR charity boot sale at Muir of Ord. To quote from a review on the cover by the Irish Times "A harrowing but compelling account of the way her mother stole her childhood". I read a copy of this book prior to joining BookCrossing and agree.

Won by LeishaCamden in my '300 books registered International RABCK Draw' so it will be on the way to Norway as soon as the UK Postal workers are back to work.

I won - yay!! I so rarely win anything that I'm always thrilled to bits when I do. :-) And this is a book that I've really been wanting to read ... I saw it in a store when I was in Scotland ;-) in November last year, and I've read about it online, and I've been thinking what a fascinating story it sounds like. Thank you so much, Ardachy, for giving me the chance to read it! I'll journal again when I've read the book.

I've read this book now, started reading on Monday, March 3rd, and finished it this morning.

Harrowing and compelling it certainly was. What it first and foremost made me think was quite simple: that poor girl ... !! She went through so much and ALL of it unnecessary. And the worst of it wasn't even the things that were done to her physically and to her health, at least IMO - the worst was everything she lost just through being sick almost all the time during her childhood and youth. She missed out on making friendships ... and from what it sounds like she missed out on getting a really good education, because she was such a smart girl, she did very well indeed in the periods when she wasn't ill. Poor girl ... :-(

MPB is a complicated thing though and reading this book it's hard to not feel at least a little sorry for her mother as well. Although Gregory doesn't share that much about her mother's past - I guess she may not know very much - it's certainly enough to make the reader realize that this woman went through a lot of terrible things growing up. And clearly she must be very troubled to do all the things she did ... not just to her children and those around her, but even to herself. Still though I really can't make myself understand what could make a woman do such things to a child ... especially her own child. I'm sure it's a good thing, that I don't understand that. It seems quite unnatural to me.

This is the story about a terrible ordeal that a young girl and woman went through, but it's also a story of personal struggle and courage. A lot of people did a lot of things to force this woman to her knees, but she ended up stronger than all of them. This is perhaps the saddest thing of all in reading this book - with such strength and courage, who knows what she could have made of her life if she had been able to start from an optimal position? I hope she will have a good life from here on out.

Although there are a lot of pretty extreme things that happen in this book I have no trouble believing it. Gregory does such a good job of sharing her feelings with the reader and making the scenes come alive. It's a very well written book, for this genre certainly and, I'd say, as a contemporary autobiography generally. I would recommend it for anyone interested in psychology and child abuse ... though not perhaps the most faint-hearted ones. It was a very worthwhile read, IMO.

Thank you for sharing, Ardachy!!

I'll take this book with me to the next BC meetup here in Oslo and see if anyone there wants to read it ... if not, I'm sure I'll find something else to do with it. :-)

RELEASE NOTES:

Jannike picked this up at the BC meetup here in Oslo today. Happy reading ... or at least interesting, I guess happy isn't quite the word. :-) I hope you will get something out of reading the book, I think is what I'm saying. :-)

I got this book at the BC-meeting in Oslo 2 days ago - and I already finished it. It was quite shocking to read about how a grown up can mistreat a child, and still be loved by the same child. In a way it is fascinating, but very scary. This family probably seemed nice and normal to the outsiders.. I am going to Trondheim by train this evening and plan to release it somewhere on my journey.

RELEASE NOTES:

At a public phone in the railway station.