Jenny R. (jennala9) - reviewed on 5/11/2008 + 17 more book reviews

Helpful Score: 2

This book made me so angry that I decided not to finish it, even after reading over 200 pages of it. The storyline was okay, and I admit I want to know what happened, but I couldn't take any more of the bias in it. I realize I may be more sensitive because I am a case worker in child welfare, but this book was so biased as to appear ignorant and I can't help but feel like the author had an agenda. She basically tried to discount Munchausen by Proxy and say it doesn't even exist, not just that the main character doesn't have it. She also tried to completely bash all CPS services and used incorrect facts to make them look bad. I can't stand books that have wrong information, and I don't know of any state that has investigations open for a year and never would they investigate a case without telling the parents! If there is a concern that telling the parents would lead to further abuse of the child, that is a red flag! It's not even that I couldn't stand the main character -- her feelings were real. It was the rest of the narration that tried to downplay this disease for all women (when yes, it does exist). And what really made me mad close to page 200 was the statement about the 25-y/o social worker... "... so in all likelihood she wasn't married and didn't have children. How could she possibly be an expert in assessing families at risk? What did she have to go on, really, besides the horrifying statistics that been drilled into her?" (and let me tell you that missing word is not me, there were tons of grammatical mistakes in the book) but really? What else did she have to go on?? How about her college education? Her extensive training to be a case worker? Her continued educational training? All that is not "just statistics"! It's so much more! I just felt like these things were not all coming from the "character" but that the author must have had a bad experience with CPS and took it out in the novel. I was sooo disappointed in how this book portrayed this disease and how CPS would handle it. Even if you have a gripe against CPS, which many people do, don't base it off incorrect and/or biased information, which this was! I just felt very insulted the whole time I was reading this. If you can deal with those things, then you might actually like the story, hehe.

Back to all reviews by this member
Back to all reviews of this book
Back to Book Reviews
Back to Book Details