A review by acouplereadss
Dancing with the Octopus: A Memoir of a Crime by Debora Harding

challenging dark sad medium-paced

2.0

Debora Harding was 14 when a man abducted her from her church parking lot. She was thrown into a van, assaulted, held for ransom and left to die in a snow storm. But Debora survived and identified her attacker. Years later she meets her abuser in prison and sets out on writing this book where she recounts what happened to her through her eyes and his. 

What started out as promising turned into quite a drag of a book considering how horrific the content was. I don’t know how to word my thoughts about this one without being sensitive to the authors experience, which as I mentioned was horrific, but this was poorly written. I think the editor made the right call in slicing this into one and a half page chapters otherwise I don’t think I’d have been able to consume this book, not to mention with how fast I got through it considering. And don’t get me started on the “in which” chapter headings.

That all being said, this was a sad account of how a family can be torn apart by tragedy from different angles. From interfamilial abuse to an devastating occurrence to author and how that affects the entire family core makes your heart hurt.

Thank you for buddy reading with me @cozyinthenook, 3⭐️.