Legend Press, May 2, 2016.
Three Stars
Amanda was severely abused as a child, and now as a
teenager she has locked herself in her bedroom and refuses to come out. Her “shrink”
asked her what she remembers about being young, and the horrific memories came
flooding back, crippling her emotionally. Although her mother feeds her and
tries to get her to leave the bedroom, her love has no effect on Amanda – just as
when she was young, and her mother was unable to protect her from her father’s
rage.
The “Wacky Man” is Amanda’s father, although it is
also the name the children have for the truancy officer because “wacking it” is
apparently slang for skipping school. Amanda jokes that “dad was whacking me
for wacking it,” (Loc. 104) but his abuse goes beyond that. Amanda’s brothers
have escaped, but they left her behind and she feels abandoned. She hopes for a
way out too, beyond her violent past – but she is stuck, both in her bedroom
and inside her own head.
As a new chapter begins, Amanda asks the shrink (and
by default, us, her readers), “Back for some more, eh?” It perfectly describes
the process of reading this novel – just scene after scene of horror and abuse.
It almost becomes gratuitous because there is no real plot, and I found it hard
to keep picking the book up, knowing it would be more of the same. There was no
redemption for Amanda, making this a very difficult read.
The author studied psychology and works in education,
making me curious about whether the character of Amanda was inspired by someone
in particular. The novel doesn’t end on a happy note, which made me wonder what
the author’s intentions were in writing it – is it just to show the extent of
abuse? Or the impact of all our actions on the children in our lives? There are
moments of insight into a child’s emotional world, possibly meant to create
empathy for the damaged youth that fall through the cracks of our social
systems. Amanda shows us how they become that way, through her feelings about
herself: “Things like me, deformed, forgotten things, we don’t have a future.
We just have a day when we no longer wake up.” (Loc. 116) Hopefully Amanda’s
story can prevent more children from feeling this way.
I received this novel from Legend Press and NetGalley
in exchange for an honest review.
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