This is the incredible story of a very resilient girl, Rachel Sontag, and her family. Her father is an overbearing, over protective, abusive jerk, her mother is brainwashed into her dad's ways (does/says whatever he tells her to), and Rachel's little sister is the forgotten one. Yet Rachel struggles to reach her dad, to make him feel proud of her, to love her, as she grows up.
Rachel struggles with her father and their relationship, as she constantly seeks his approval, tries to reach him and understand him, and tries to make him feel proud of her. She searches for the good in him, strives to be the parts of him she loves, and still, she baits him when he's getting angry. Her defense mechanism was to be sarcastic (which I can totally relate to) or to concentrate on tuning him out. She even got involved in acting and theatre as a child so she could literally escape her life.
As she enters high school, things have never been so bad with her father. He tapes her phone calls, makes her have almost nightly talks about how she does absolutely everthing wrong, makes her write page after page of belittling words about herself, as he dictates them. When she realized her father - a doctor - was medicating their mom to the point where she would physically attack Rachel, she realized it was time to get out of there. DCF entered the picture, and for awhile, Rachel lived in a teen shelter for girls.
As Rachel's mom went in and out of (forced) drug use, she threatened to divorce their father multiple times but never went through with it. It was then Rachel stopped trusting her mother as well.
Rachel and her family are still estranged - her father cut her off when she took a trip to visit friends over a holiday break (crazy, right?) - but Rachel and her sister are still trying to work through their past.
It was a heartbreaking story - there were so many times when I could've thrown the book clear across the room, I was that disgusted with her dad - but I was constantly routing for her and couldn't wait to see how she ended the book. I don't even know her and I'm proud of what she's accomplished. Proud that she has stayed true to herself despite all the setbacks in her life. Despite her family. Proud also that she's still reaching out, still trying to repair what's been broken.
Highly recommended.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment