September Book Review

Content Warning for Child Abuse

I know I'm backdating pretty blatantly, but for this to be a proper documentation of my reading we have to start somewhere!

I began therapy late last year, and let me tell you...it's changed my life. It took years to get my focus back, due to the drug and alcohol haze I was in. From twenty to twenty-three, I was a wild child and lived my life alternating drugs, alcohol, and an excess of sixty to seventy-five hours of work at a physically demanding job. No time for reading when you're at bars every night.

I finally made it through one book the fall I started therapy. It took nearly a month to listen to Dave Pelzer's A Child Called It, a memoir of the horrific abuses that he underwent during his tumultuous childhood. This book was difficult to get through, for many reasons. Part of it was disgust. How could someone do what Mrs. Pelzer did to her son? The other part was the nasty feeling in the pit of my stomach when I realized something horrible about my own childhood - I could relate to some of it. While my hard working parents were away, I was at the mercy of both my grandmother and the daycare I went to. This realization made me take nearly a month to listen to on audio, but I am so glad I was able to because this book really changed the course of my life. I decided that I want to be a social worker and began school again at the beginning of January, coming back after seven years away. So far, I have more than doubled my GPA from the 2014 abysmal score of 1.2, and I now sit very pretty at a 3.0.

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The Review - There Be Spoilers

Dave Pelzer's story chronicles his mother's descent from perfect mother to horrific abuser, and ultimately ends with his removal from the home.There is a sequel, which from what I understand documents his foster experience and some of the challenges of adolescence and early adulthood. In all, I found this book somehow both poignant and blunt, with a detached sense of recollection. Of course, the tone breaks up in parts as Pelzer recounts certain abuses, such as the ammonia and bleach cocktail that his mother forces him to drink or the heartbreaking moment when he realizes his father is not on his side. In contrast, in some parts Pelzer is almost proud of his triumph in stealing food and quickly eating partially frozen chicken nuggets during his mother's periods of enforced starvation. This is a hallmark of an excellent writer, who can both approach things objectively and still display emotions and truly reflect. As someone who has gone through some violent pain and horrific events myself, there is a feeling you can't quite describe upon reflection. It's somewhere between resignation, wistfulness, and tightness in your chest that eventually goes numb as you ponder why your life is not different. I appreciate the honest way that Pelzer writes, his early memories fragmented and his memories closer to the day he was saved much more clear. This was truly an excellent book. I can't say that I enjoyed it, but it very much changed me.