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gillyanne's review
5.0
Graphic: Pedophilia, Emotional abuse, Abandonment, Physical abuse, Child abuse, and Bullying
Moderate: Adult/minor relationship
Minor: Body shaming
creativerunnings's review against another edition
4.5
Graphic: Body horror, Child abuse, Pedophilia, Classism, Self harm, Ableism, Adult/minor relationship, Abandonment, Confinement, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Body shaming, Emotional abuse, Eating disorder, Forced institutionalization, Rape, Sexual violence, Violence, Bullying, Blood, Suicidal thoughts, Homophobia, Grief, Mental illness, and Physical abuse
knkoch's review against another edition
4.25
Spencer really picked at a delicate paradox here, both acknowledging he and his peers' considerable class privilege and marveling at the entrenched English tradition of severe boarding school education, perhaps meant to "harden" those privileged children. The very families that could afford to educate their children any way they wished often chose to send them into the hands of 'educators' and staff they knew virtually nothing about, a situation primed for appalling abuse and subsequent cover-ups. Spencer tells his own story quite honestly, providing an account of his childhood understanding of events leavened with his now-adult perspective, which took many years and considerable therapy to reach. He's quite vulnerable throughout this account, without ever seeming self-pitying or arrogant. Though he does eviscerate the adults who failed him and his peers: staff, both teachers and administration, both abusers and knowing bystanders, all of whom could have tried to intervene. That seemed quite fair on his part.
Graphic: Sexual assault, Physical abuse, Toxic relationship, Adult/minor relationship, Pedophilia, Emotional abuse, and Child abuse
Moderate: Bullying
ilikemandos's review against another edition
Graphic: Gaslighting, Rape, Toxic relationship, Vomit, Sexual assault, Adult/minor relationship, Excrement, Grief, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Religious bigotry, Bullying, Eating disorder, Sexual harassment, Violence, Sexual violence, Abandonment, Child abuse, Body shaming, Fatphobia, Sexual content, and Emotional abuse