Helpful Score: 5
soul-raping torture
These are the authors words describing her going against her abusers defense team many, many years after the fact. I'd use those words to describe almost every single experience of her entire childhood.
The cover of this book claims it to be "the most shocking true story of abuse ever told". When I saw that I took it with a grain of salt- EVERY abuse case is shocking, every abuse case is horrible. Well, they were right. I've read countless books of this nature and have yet to come across anything even close to what this woman endured as a toddler, child, and teenager.
Shy Keenan was abused basically from birth, sexually, physically, emotionally and any other kind you can think of. There were very few people in her life that didn't abuse her and those few were kept far away by her "mother" (I use the quotes because while she was her birth mother I have a truly hard time calling the woman a mother) and step father. During her childhood and teenage years she was repeatedly molested and raped by her step father, sold to his friends and friends of their friends, made to pose nude for pictures, and so much more.
She tried more than once to tell her "mother" who either didn't believe her or just plain didn't care enough to stop it, depending on which time she was told. She tried telling authority figures, professionals, everyone at one time or another and was ignored by all. Her socail services files held comments that she was promiscuious, sexually attacking her step father, an all around problem child.
I'll be blunt- this is a HARD book to read in the sense that these things that she went through are truly not something most of us can understand. It's a very EASY book in that she's a great writer. She's a great writer who takes you through her life story (which had to have been very difficult I'm sure) with so much emotion and so much feeling that you can't help but struggle through every single emotion out there yourself. Even at such a young age she was so strong, doing her best to protect her baby sister and take on more of the abuse herself and trying to care for her "mother" when she was sick. Mrs. Keenan is able to do what a lot of others in her situation haven't been able to do for me and that is to make me truly understand how she felt, as much as it's possible to without having gone through this myself, and truly make me ache for her and everyone else affected by these evil people she had the bad luck to have to live her life around.
If you're looking for something easy to read I wouldn't dare stop here but if you like reading about strong women, women who were able to make it against overwhelming odds, then this is your book. I can think of none better.
I wish Mrs. Keenan all the luck in the world and trust me, she deserves it.
These are the authors words describing her going against her abusers defense team many, many years after the fact. I'd use those words to describe almost every single experience of her entire childhood.
The cover of this book claims it to be "the most shocking true story of abuse ever told". When I saw that I took it with a grain of salt- EVERY abuse case is shocking, every abuse case is horrible. Well, they were right. I've read countless books of this nature and have yet to come across anything even close to what this woman endured as a toddler, child, and teenager.
Shy Keenan was abused basically from birth, sexually, physically, emotionally and any other kind you can think of. There were very few people in her life that didn't abuse her and those few were kept far away by her "mother" (I use the quotes because while she was her birth mother I have a truly hard time calling the woman a mother) and step father. During her childhood and teenage years she was repeatedly molested and raped by her step father, sold to his friends and friends of their friends, made to pose nude for pictures, and so much more.
She tried more than once to tell her "mother" who either didn't believe her or just plain didn't care enough to stop it, depending on which time she was told. She tried telling authority figures, professionals, everyone at one time or another and was ignored by all. Her socail services files held comments that she was promiscuious, sexually attacking her step father, an all around problem child.
I'll be blunt- this is a HARD book to read in the sense that these things that she went through are truly not something most of us can understand. It's a very EASY book in that she's a great writer. She's a great writer who takes you through her life story (which had to have been very difficult I'm sure) with so much emotion and so much feeling that you can't help but struggle through every single emotion out there yourself. Even at such a young age she was so strong, doing her best to protect her baby sister and take on more of the abuse herself and trying to care for her "mother" when she was sick. Mrs. Keenan is able to do what a lot of others in her situation haven't been able to do for me and that is to make me truly understand how she felt, as much as it's possible to without having gone through this myself, and truly make me ache for her and everyone else affected by these evil people she had the bad luck to have to live her life around.
If you're looking for something easy to read I wouldn't dare stop here but if you like reading about strong women, women who were able to make it against overwhelming odds, then this is your book. I can think of none better.
I wish Mrs. Keenan all the luck in the world and trust me, she deserves it.
