A review by inquiry_from_an_anti_library
Woman In Hiding: A True Tale Of Backdoor Abuse, Dark Secrets &Amp; Other Evil Deeds by Kathleen Hoy Foley

adventurous dark funny informative sad tense medium-paced

3.0

Is This An Overview?

Silencing the past, silencing the tragedy, silencing the emotional wounds does not lead to healing.  Pretending that traumatic events did not happen, does not change the fact of what happened.  This is a story about a lifetime of silence, of being a secret keeper.  This is a story about sharing those secrets.  Secrets of physical harassment, emotional harassment, sexually harassment.  Harassment of the vulnerable paves the way for trauma, to misery.  In response to the pain caused to them, to escape their pain, they develop behaviors that lead to more misery.  Behaviors such as taking out their rage on those even more vulnerable than them.  Situational awareness changes for the traumatized, as they see danger everywhere.  The support for victims of harassment is often denied by society, which does not recognize the harassment, which allows the perpetrators to continue their inappropriate behavior.

 

Caveats?

This is a story about tragic events, that the reader needs to be emotionally prepared to engage with.  As an autobiography, there is always a concern for how the events are remembered.  Tragic as the events were, there is uncertainty about the actual thoughts the author had as a child or later.  As the book is consistent of personal thoughts, they sometimes read like poetry, sometimes poorly written comments in need of organization.  The perspective on events is singular.  An understanding of the events would have been enhanced by what others thought of the situations.  Representing a lifetime of events means that many