A review by jwinchell
Punching Bag by Rex Ogle

5.0

I couldn’t sleep last night, but that’s ok because I got to binge on Rex Ogle’s next memoir. Absolutely heart-breaking, the violence and physical and psychological trauma he endured in his growing up years. I love that he has an author’s note about deciding if you’re in a good enough place to read about trauma, and his afterword gives readers who might have gone or are going through violence and trauma. And there are websites and hotlines on the final pages. Generational trauma is, it seems to me, an incredibly difficult cycle to break. But Ogle is proof that it can be done and that one can forgive and go on to find a fulfilling life.