books I've read

Anne Hawn's books

Who Moved My Cheese?
If Democrats Had Any Brains, They'd Be Republicans
Scientific Secrets for Self-Control
Just One Damned Thing After Another
The Vanishing
Exercises in Knitting
The Good Dream
The Very Best of Edgar Allan Poe
The Chosen
BT-Kids' Knits
Talking God
The Professor
The Christmas Files
The Finisher
Home Decor for 18-Inch Dolls: Create 10 Room Settings with Furniture and 15 Outfits with Accessories
Dracula and Other Stories
A New Song
Christy
All Quiet on the Western Front
File Under: 13 Suspicious Incidents


Anne Hawn Smith's favorite books »

I'm reading 150 Books

2019 Reading Challenge
2019 Reading Challenge 19614 members
<b>Are you ready to set your 2019 reading goal?</b> This is a supportive, fun group of people looking for people just like you. Track your annual reading goal here with us, and we have challenges, group reads, and other fun ways to help keep you on pace. There will never be a specific number of books to read here or pressure to read more than you can commit to. Your goal is five? Great! You think you want to read 200? Very cool! We won't kick you out for not participating regularly, but we'll love it if you do. Join us!

Books we've read

The Help
The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making
The Night Circus
The Golden Compass
11/22/63
The Little Lady Agency
Catch-22
The Good Father
A Discovery of Witches
The Knife of Never Letting Go
Fahrenheit 451
Frankenstein
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
A Christmas Carol
Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore
The Color Purple
Matched
Cloud Atlas
The Princess Bride
The Catcher in the Rye


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Tuesday, September 24, 2013

A Brother's Journey

A Brother's JourneyA Brother's Journey by Richard B. Pelzer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is the book that David Pelzer's brother, Richard, wrote about his ordeal after David left home. When David was there, Richard functioned as Mother's Nazi." He tattled about every little thing Richard did and often lied to get him in trouble. Several years younger, his mother groomed him from the time he could talk.

After David left, Richard became the outcast and as he became more and more abused, he felt terrible about the part he played in his brother's life. Eventually, he became "The boy," and finally, "It."

What I can't understand is why the Social Services didn't keep tabs on this mother after the terrible abuse David suffered. When he was taken from the home, it seemed ludicrous to not check on the other children. When the same teachers saw Richard begin to come to school in the same filthy old clothes, starving and with bruises all over just like David, why didn't anyone do anything? I realize it was a different climate in the 70's, but it seems bizarre to ignore what was going on.

As adults, these brothers have only met one or two times and there is some antagonism between them. It seems clear that Richard did suffer abuse, but there is some question as to how much. However, it seems to me that the mother spent the biggest portion of her days torturing David and I can't see that stopping after he was removed. She was filled with so much anger and it had to have a target.

Different people have tried to link her with a specific mental illness and seem to lean towards Borderline Personality Disorder. This book tells more about her relationship with her own mother and there seems to have been some abuse there. Whatever the pathology, she was never prosecuted and lived out the rest of her natural life.


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