Total Page : 288
Publisher : Harper Perennial
Publication Date : 2009 04 01
>> Amazing story inside the cover of the book and out
This book is amazing I usually don t read memoirs in fact I avoid them like the plague but I found this one read the inside cover information and decided to give it a try I couldn t put it down The story is sad and insightful and it forces the reader to think deeply about one s own immediate family
After I finished the book I decided to check it out on Amazon just to find out what other readers are saying I love Amazon reviews As I scrolled through I realized that there is a huge drama surrounding the book and that the father is protesting against it as loudly as possible I did a quick google search and came across some interviews with Ms Sontag She doesn t make a secret of anything regarding her father s opposition of the book ultimately giving her a lot of credibility and she even encourages readers to go to her father s web site to see what he has to say So I checked out her father s web site that tries to convince readers that Rachel is a liar posting proof of her perfect childhood in the form of pictures and letters My thoughts on this site Well if you take a look at it the more obvious it becomes as to who is telling the truth and who is not
But it is not my place to tell you who I think is telling the truth You can decide that on your own
More troubling to me are the reviews on Amazon and other sites Readers of this memoir are involved in a heated debate There are some reviews that claim that Sontag has no right to complain about her difficult father she came from a family that provided for her materially that didn t physically abuse her not true in my opinion and that took her on trips around the world True but you don t have to be poor or rich to be a victim of abuse Abuse emotional physical psychological etc happens in every demographic Also we shouldn t judge Experiences affect us all differently Ultimately that is the lesson and we can see it in the debate surrounding this novel I think that that is what this memoir and the interesting conversation surrounding it shows us
>> Breaking Free
This is Rachel Sontag s beautifully written memoir of her life at home It is a heart wrenching tale To anyone on the outside it would appear that Rachel has a great life two parents that are still together a sister her dad is a doctor and they do travel together However her father is a monster in that he is a complete control freak He records her phone conversations hides the phones when he leaves the house belittles her constantly demeans her and almost completely destroys her mentally While he was indeed the abuser in the home I always wanted to shake the mother in this situation How she managed to sit by and watch her daughters be abused by this man is beyond me She knew what was going on she stood by his side while he harrassed Rachel and still she did nothing She made plans to leave but those plans never took place Rachel finally came to this realization and knew the only way out was through her own willpower
While this was a sad story on so many levels it was an absolute joy to know that Rachel survived this childhood and pulled herself out of the depths of that household She is a true survivor
>> a mature read
This is one girl s struggle to find and accept her own identity within her very dysfunctional family A can t put it down story Thought provoking and enlightening
