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Review Date: 12/24/2008
Helpful Score: 1
This is a book I found painful. It is well written and in some ways that makes it harder to take....it is easy to read about horrific child abuse and the power the abusive parent holds over even the well-respected adult decades later. Worth reading, but hard to take...especailly if you are an empathic reader. On the other hand, perhaps we should all be more sensitve to the long-lasting trama of physical abuse at the hands of a well-loved parent.
Review Date: 1/2/2009
Helpful Score: 1
I very much enjoyed this book. It is written in the style of a journalist, despite the fact that it is a memoir. I'm sure Ms. Walls is an excellent journalist and always keeps her head in a crisis. It is that style that makes this book so enjoyable. I read it a second time and made an effort to have emotions for Ms. Walls who is so disconnected from them. I hope for her sake that she revisits this material with emotion for herself. I think the point of this book that it most often missed by the reader is that the Walls actually had access to money. They simply refused to use it at the expense of their children. This makes this story about something much deeper, and much more dysfunctional than poverty.
Review Date: 1/2/2009
Helpful Score: 3
I think this book gives the reader a personal experience of having a relationship with an addict. They lie. They make you believe them and feel for them and then you find out they manipulated you. I not certain of any claim in this book except for the one that Mr. Frey is an addict. Clearly his recovery, if he had one from actual drugs and alcohol, did not cure him of his adictive behavior. That said, the experience of reading this book before learning that it wasn't true and then discovering the facts is exactly the experience of caring for an addict. For that experience alone it is worth reading, especially if you can let yourself believe him still and then imagine discovering the fraud. I'm not sure it is worth the read as fiction.
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