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4.34 AVERAGE
4.34 AVERAGE
medium-paced
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
I could not wait to read this book. I was waiting for it, ready for it. After finishing it, I had to just sit there with it, it still sits with me.
This is an emotionally gripping story told by Natasha who returns home years after her mother was murdered by Natasha’s stepfather. Natahsa tells us what it was like to grow up bi-racial in the south in the 1960’s in the south, just before the landmark Loving vs. Virginia decision, the toll being a biracial couple took on her parents, her life and relationship with her parents, her relationship with her mother’s family, her and he mom’s move from Mississippi to Atlanta where her mom meets Joel. From the get go we can see the Joel is a crappy human being, he is controlling, suspicious, verbally and physically abusive. Natasha’s mom suffers terrible violent physical and emotional abuse but she gets away, she makes a break. Only to have Joel, who needs to have the last word/action (very typical of abusers), force his way to moms apartment and shoot her violently and cold-bloodedly in the head. The last part of the book is augmented with transcripts of interviews, recorded phone conversations, and pages of evidence from the case file. These are so powerful, so heartbreaking, just…..so hard.
This book was raw, gritty, heartbreaking, anger inducing. The emotion that leaches from the page, from Natasha’s words are palpable. This may have happened 35 years ago, but she is still dealing with grief and loss and maybe a little built of guilt.
I highly, highly recommend this book.
This is an emotionally gripping story told by Natasha who returns home years after her mother was murdered by Natasha’s stepfather. Natahsa tells us what it was like to grow up bi-racial in the south in the 1960’s in the south, just before the landmark Loving vs. Virginia decision, the toll being a biracial couple took on her parents, her life and relationship with her parents, her relationship with her mother’s family, her and he mom’s move from Mississippi to Atlanta where her mom meets Joel. From the get go we can see the Joel is a crappy human being, he is controlling, suspicious, verbally and physically abusive. Natasha’s mom suffers terrible violent physical and emotional abuse but she gets away, she makes a break. Only to have Joel, who needs to have the last word/action (very typical of abusers), force his way to moms apartment and shoot her violently and cold-bloodedly in the head. The last part of the book is augmented with transcripts of interviews, recorded phone conversations, and pages of evidence from the case file. These are so powerful, so heartbreaking, just…..so hard.
This book was raw, gritty, heartbreaking, anger inducing. The emotion that leaches from the page, from Natasha’s words are palpable. This may have happened 35 years ago, but she is still dealing with grief and loss and maybe a little built of guilt.
I highly, highly recommend this book.
This was an incredibly difficult memoir to read. It smashed my heart into smithereens as Tretheway recounts her mother’s murder and the abuse both her and her mother faced. The system could have saved her mother.
Superb audio book narrated by the author. Not a pleasant topic - her stepfather murders her mother. But the memoir tells the story of the mother-daughter relationship and how the she has learned to live with the trauma.
challenging
dark
emotional
medium-paced
Beautifully written devastating story of DV and the loss of a mother.
challenging
sad
medium-paced
It was well written I think. Just really hard content. Being as its brutal nonfiction I know I'm lucky my life never looked like this. I'm reading lot of similar stories these days and the mother-daughter relationship is anything but cookie cutter.
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced