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eaglechick247 's review for:
Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family
by Robert Kolker
Fascinating story, but this book jumped around too much for me to keep all the brothers straight half the time and threw too much medical information in at odd times that further split up the story.
As for the brothers: So many having schizophrenia was really sad to read about. I may have missed it, but it mentioned many of them used heavy drugs in their teens, so was it ever explored that maybe some of the drugs were laced and made some of the boys much worse than the others or sent their potential for schizophrenia over the edge or even caused their mental issues? I also felt some of the over-the-top sibling violence growing up was brushed under the rug by the parents as if they had a "boys will be boys" mentality and added to the mental stress each sibling was under. And the mom making excuses for the one brother molesting his siblings? That really got under my skin. I felt the parents seemed to either make excuses or ignore a lot of red flags growing up that may or may not have have been the catalyst for so many having issues in the long run. I really feel for these siblings; that household sounded out of control and must have been very scary and stressful to grow up in.
As for the brothers: So many having schizophrenia was really sad to read about. I may have missed it, but it mentioned many of them used heavy drugs in their teens, so was it ever explored that maybe some of the drugs were laced and made some of the boys much worse than the others or sent their potential for schizophrenia over the edge or even caused their mental issues? I also felt some of the over-the-top sibling violence growing up was brushed under the rug by the parents as if they had a "boys will be boys" mentality and added to the mental stress each sibling was under. And the mom making excuses for the one brother molesting his siblings? That really got under my skin. I felt the parents seemed to either make excuses or ignore a lot of red flags growing up that may or may not have have been the catalyst for so many having issues in the long run. I really feel for these siblings; that household sounded out of control and must have been very scary and stressful to grow up in.