Wasn't this a read? This book is a heartwrenching record of a young lady's life growing up in Appalachia. With an abusive mother, a seemingly unknowing father, and abusive siblings, Betty survived hell, and I thank god for it.
Betty's early life didn't seem too bad, but I should have known what was coming. Mentally ill parents that don't get help, create mentally ill children. And those mentally ill children, who don't get their own help, create even more mentally ill children and so the cycle continues. This book is about breaking cycles. And the cycles that ravage us that we MUST break.
Betty's father both angers and comforts me. He was so wrapped up in creating a magical fantasy for his children that he didn't see the evil happening under his own roof. It is one thing to create wonder for your young children, but to continue until they are older and never acknowledge the incest of your children or the abuse your wife inflicts upon your kids, ... like, seriously? His whole thing at the beginning of the book was that he stood up against his wife being beaten and raped by her father, and went ahead and enacted some homebrewed justice, but then he lets that same woman he protected abuse his children? I have a hard time believing he didn't know about the incest and abuse that was happening.
That being said, their father was the only escape they had from the evil in their own home, and he gave them the joys of childhood, and even taught them things that helped create wise women (and men) out of them, in some cases.
If you can stomach it, this book is well worth the read. I was incredibly impressed by the colorful writing and the beautifully frank descriptions of every little moment - each technicolor childhood memory sings on its own, and together into an incredibly real story that captures the hell that women are given throughout their lives, and the father that helped Betty through it.
-Much love,
Brieanna
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