Reading is Therapy

Note : I do not recommend this book to someone who has been molested or could be triggered by rape and abuse issues.

This book is well written in the fact that the readers can really feel like they are inside Meredith’s head (well, it’s not grand literature but that'll do). It’s easy to read.

This book is hugely disturbing. It gives you a thrill but not one of the good kind, especially in the first chapters where you have to sink in the story. In the beginning, you feel dirty and maybe a bit sick : this book started well, living up to my expectations.
But by the end of the book, Charles had become a caricature of himself, i don't think a predator of his kind was well portrayed at all. I'm sure there is molester with his exact attitude in this world, but his portrait lacked something that i can't put my finger on. In the last scene, he seemed more like a robot, which was prompted to tell his lines, more than an avid predator in company of his prey. The tension went downhill, especially after the introduction of a bunch of character that seemed useless overall.

I don’t know if this was for shock value or not but I found it extremely weird that no one was really willing to help Meredith. It seemed like she was a prey trapped. A smart move would have been to move out as soon as her father was released from jail. Meredith could have gone to any relative, to her grandmother; she could even have lived with Andy for some times with or without her mother approval.
This book is short but it’s still long for what it is. I understand that the tension has to be build up at its own pace and that memories from the past has to be instilled in the story but for the safety of the main character – 15 yo Meredith – I wished that this story would have been only 2 pages long : Dad comes backs, everyone throws him out.

What made me feel disgusted by this story are the flashbacks (you just want to take the kid and travel to the other side of the country to protect her), which seem innocent but are sickening when you know that the father is a molester, and the father’s speech on how he owns her soul and body while the mother is 100% blind to what is happening.

One thing that I didn’t really like was the relationship between the Mues and Meredith’s family. It didn’t sit right.

On the flow of the book : even though I could figure out the main path, I still felt like this book was dispatched, with scenes of Andy jumping in out of nowhere.
Somehow this story turned out to be as much Meredith’s as Andy’s. Sadly, I didn’t connect to Andy at all. I didn’t follow his train of thought and failed to see the purpose in his actions and words.

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. The silent litany flows unbidden. Queen of families, have mercy. Help me.
I shoot inside as my father thunders down the hall. Slam the door but he’s there, right there, turning the knob as I fight to lock it and he’s stronger than me so I back away with my own breathless blubbering in my ears.
Paralysis comes and goes. In a flash I’m berserk, all claws and work boots. “I hate you!” I grind out, wild because I’m not going to be the one torn and bloody again, raped on camera, the pathetic victim sacrifice absorbing the sick pain of the sick fucking world. I’ll kill him first, I will, and somewhere deep inside of me, I realize I’ve always known it.