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wendythegeekgoddess's review
4.0
If there are 2 things that really get to me its Animal Abuse and Child Abuse. The story of David's life was hard to read. Hving 2 young children of my own, I can't imagine them ever facing the hardships young David faced. I hated his mother, wish I could meet her so I could just punch her in the face. The book was at times very hard to read and I can't begin to understand why a mother would ever do that to her child. This is a book that will stick with you for a very long time.
zapkode's review
5.0
{my thoughts} - This book is a book that is not for someone with a week stomach. It is about a child's struggle to deal with a bad hand of cards that he has been dealt. The way in which this child is treated and manipulated breaks the readers heart. It saddened me that the school did nothing to help this child until it was almost to late. When a child goes through so much pain and suffering to the extent that it is apparent something is going on in the home life there should be more investigation into the matter. I have issues know that that CPS had been involved and never did their jobs. When children really need CPS to intervene it never does. It's like they see it worthy of their time to tear apart family's that don't need their help but to leave those family's that do need help alone. CPS in this book is easily fooled by the mother and her actions in manipulating her son. She uses him to prove to them that nothing is wrong within the household and that she is treating them right. However, in reality that isn't the case and the child endures years of suffering because of it.
all_things_books21's review
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
5.0
As I listen to this book, my heart hurt for this child, and I lost more faith in humanity. This book tells us about the trauma and abuse that a child suffered from starting at a very young age.
When I started this audiobook, I knew it was about child abuse, but I honestly couldn’t have imagined half of the things Dave went through. The abuse he went through at the hands of his mother is unspeakable. While his father never actually physically abused Dave, he sat by and let his wife do whatever she wanted to hurt and humiliate Dave. L
It’s honestly disgusting that he went through years of abuse before a substitute teacher became concerned. Dave suffered from abuse for at least three or four years, yet not a single school staff seemed to notice or care. This poor child was failed by every single adult his life, up until the substitute teacher.
Honestly if the story didn’t start with Dave being rescued, I wholeheartedly would have thought he was going to die at the hands on his mother on more than on occasion. Knowing that he survived those horrors was one of the reasons that I was able to continue listening to the audiobook.
This book was definitely heartbreaking in multiple ways and definitely not for them weak stomach. If you can’t handle child abuse, please don’t read or listen to this book. It’s deeply disturbing and not for everyone.
sneeps's review
1.0
I don't recall my feelings on this book when I read it in high school so I went for a reread when I saw it at the library.
Child abuse is serious and I'm not interested in debating the veracity of Pelzer's claims here. My gripe with this book is that it is just very poorly written. It's torture porn and nothing else. Especially off the heels of recently reading I'm Glad My Mom Died by Janette McCurdy, this book is glaringly bad. There's no sense of a life or people beyond the abuse, aside from a very fake sounding idyllic childhood section at the beginning. The dialogue is cheesy and cringy. The prose is stuffed with cliches. There's zero effort made to understand the mother's actions or motivations, supposedly because Pelzer is writing from a child's perspective. I think that was a poor choice narratively. It makes the story very one dimensional, and there's no substance beyond the abuse. The grim determination of a child to be a triumph of the human spirit is just so uninterestingly portrayed.
And okay in terms of whether the abuse was real, misremembered, or completely fabricated, at the very least it was exaggerated in the way a memory from childhood would be, and in editing I think that should have been corrected for acknowledged. Totally plausible that an abusive guardian could punish a child by having him sit in a cold bath. Very unlikely a malnourished child would survive being kept in cold water for multiple hours on multiple occasions. Grown adults get hypothermia much quicker than that. This should have been acknowledged "it felt like hours but I don't know how long it was" or the claim that he was left for hours should have been cut entirely. Many similar situations are described that sound just a little too intense to believe they happened in exactly that way and didn't kill him or leave permanent physical scars to adulthood. But whatever. Go read Janette McCurdy's memoir instead.
Child abuse is serious and I'm not interested in debating the veracity of Pelzer's claims here. My gripe with this book is that it is just very poorly written. It's torture porn and nothing else. Especially off the heels of recently reading I'm Glad My Mom Died by Janette McCurdy, this book is glaringly bad. There's no sense of a life or people beyond the abuse, aside from a very fake sounding idyllic childhood section at the beginning. The dialogue is cheesy and cringy. The prose is stuffed with cliches. There's zero effort made to understand the mother's actions or motivations, supposedly because Pelzer is writing from a child's perspective. I think that was a poor choice narratively. It makes the story very one dimensional, and there's no substance beyond the abuse. The grim determination of a child to be a triumph of the human spirit is just so uninterestingly portrayed.
And okay in terms of whether the abuse was real, misremembered, or completely fabricated, at the very least it was exaggerated in the way a memory from childhood would be, and in editing I think that should have been corrected for acknowledged. Totally plausible that an abusive guardian could punish a child by having him sit in a cold bath. Very unlikely a malnourished child would survive being kept in cold water for multiple hours on multiple occasions. Grown adults get hypothermia much quicker than that. This should have been acknowledged "it felt like hours but I don't know how long it was" or the claim that he was left for hours should have been cut entirely. Many similar situations are described that sound just a little too intense to believe they happened in exactly that way and didn't kill him or leave permanent physical scars to adulthood. But whatever. Go read Janette McCurdy's memoir instead.
fslsazal's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
2.75
spejamchr's review
challenging
dark
sad
tense
medium-paced
3.75
Very emotional. Short and brutal. Hopefully exaggerated, but possibly not.
roxnn2000's review
5.0
I found that this book inspired me to see what was really going on around me. I thought my mother was bad, I was really and seriously wrong.
The whole time I was reading this the only thing I could think (and this coming from a 12 or 13 year old girl at the time) was to strangle the mother relentlessly.
Anyone who thinks this book is bad or doesn't like it doesn't understand that for some children this is how life it and they should pick this book back up and see how bad life can be.
I recommend this book to everyone I know and everyone who wants children, has children, or takes care of children. I think that young teens should read this to know that thier lives are not as bad as they think.
This is an inspirational story. I loved it and at the same time never want to read it again because of all the horrors that child had to go through. It was sad and enlightening.
Read it and you'll see what I mean.
The whole time I was reading this the only thing I could think (and this coming from a 12 or 13 year old girl at the time) was to strangle the mother relentlessly.
Anyone who thinks this book is bad or doesn't like it doesn't understand that for some children this is how life it and they should pick this book back up and see how bad life can be.
I recommend this book to everyone I know and everyone who wants children, has children, or takes care of children. I think that young teens should read this to know that thier lives are not as bad as they think.
This is an inspirational story. I loved it and at the same time never want to read it again because of all the horrors that child had to go through. It was sad and enlightening.
Read it and you'll see what I mean.
jennkei's review
2.0
I tried to read this book twice. But like others who've reviewed it below, I just..bleh. Didn't really like it. Never managed to get far in.
I know it's (meant to be) real life, but the protagonist just isn't very..likeable. :S
I know it's (meant to be) real life, but the protagonist just isn't very..likeable. :S