Jordan E

I wish I could rewind time back to when I didn't know this book existed. The author goes into explicit detail about the most abhorrent family circumstances and then basically concludes, "That's family folks!" with a shrug and a wink. Her father is an abusive, violent, scam artist addict and her mother is a selfish, manipulative, impotent burnout who fails to meet even the most basic needs for their children at every step of their lives. As soon as the author is old enough to work, she starts buying booze for her alcoholic pops despite the destruction it causes because "she's his favorite". I kept waiting for her to actually put her foot down and establish boundaries but sure enough, her parents essentially get away with inflicting massive damage on 4 children (one of whom ends up being completely unstable and commits a violent crime at the end) and you get the sense that the author doesn't even have a vestigial backbone to speak of. Is this supposed to be inspirational? Is it supposed to be a feel-good story about how important family is? Is it supposed to be a testament to the resilience of the human spirit? Because none of that landed. My biggest takeaway was that the only person worse than the monstrous parents is the author, who insists on romanticizing their insane actions and keeps buying vodka for her addict father because he's got her wrapped around his finger, even when she's a successful adult. This is not uplifting or compelling, it's a 300-page record of horrific events that the author just appears to handwave away. I genuinely don't know who this book is for or what it's trying to say.