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A review by tealight
Somebody's Daughter by Ashley C. Ford
challenging
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
It’s hard to put into words what it is about Ford’s writing that feels as though she’s pulling you right into a memory. I usually don’t conjure up images as I read, and she hardly ever describes what anything looks like, but something about the raw emotion in her telling puts you so directly into the scene that I found myself imagining her and the people around her, in the spaces they occupied, as they might’ve appeared.
The book is often described as being about her father and his incarceration, but I felt that her mother was the true fulcrum of the book. Ford’s relationship with her, from childhood to adulthood, runs you through the full gamut of emotions. Anger at the abuse and callousness her mother was capable of, awe at her ability to raise four children as a single parent, and a deep empathy for what it’s like to love someone who is so imperfect. No other person felt so real and so laid bare in their humanity.
What I thought could’ve been better wasn’t so much in what was there, but what was missing. Ford sometimes pulled back when I wanted her to press on, changing abruptly in intensity from one chapter to the next, in a way that left my emotions lagging behind to catch up. There was a lump in my throat as she described the moment that she learned the truth of what her father had done, and then suddenly we’ve moved onto a typical teen conundrum: lying to her mom so she could go out with her friends. Between scene to scene, there were often parts that you keenly felt the absence of. Some books you desperately wish were shorter, this was one where I wanted more.
And I did search for more. I read some of the author’s interviews afterwards, and also even while reading, because I just wanted to hear more of what she had to say. That’s probably more praise than anything I could ever write about the memoir. In a way, I found her unscripted responses even more illuminating without the need to order her thoughts into a publishable narrative. She’s definitely a writer I hope to read more from, and I’m delighted that she’s involved in all sorts of other media as well.
The book is often described as being about her father and his incarceration, but I felt that her mother was the true fulcrum of the book. Ford’s relationship with her, from childhood to adulthood, runs you through the full gamut of emotions. Anger at the abuse and callousness her mother was capable of, awe at her ability to raise four children as a single parent, and a deep empathy for what it’s like to love someone who is so imperfect. No other person felt so real and so laid bare in their humanity.
What I thought could’ve been better wasn’t so much in what was there, but what was missing. Ford sometimes pulled back when I wanted her to press on, changing abruptly in intensity from one chapter to the next, in a way that left my emotions lagging behind to catch up. There was a lump in my throat as she described the moment that she learned the truth of what her father had done, and then suddenly we’ve moved onto a typical teen conundrum: lying to her mom so she could go out with her friends. Between scene to scene, there were often parts that you keenly felt the absence of. Some books you desperately wish were shorter, this was one where I wanted more.
And I did search for more. I read some of the author’s interviews afterwards, and also even while reading, because I just wanted to hear more of what she had to say. That’s probably more praise than anything I could ever write about the memoir. In a way, I found her unscripted responses even more illuminating without the need to order her thoughts into a publishable narrative. She’s definitely a writer I hope to read more from, and I’m delighted that she’s involved in all sorts of other media as well.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Child abuse, Sexual assault, Emotional abuse, Death, and Physical abuse