Summary (from bn.com):
She thought she had escaped her past. But there are some things you can’t outrun.
Lex Gracie doesn’t want to think about her family. She doesn’t want to think about growing up in her parents’ House of Horrors. And she doesn’t want to think about her identity as Girl A: the girl who escaped, the eldest sister who freed her older brother and four younger siblings. It’s been easy enough to avoid her parents—her father never made it out of the House of Horrors he created, and her mother spent the rest of her life behind bars. But when her mother dies in prison and leaves Lex and her siblings the family home, she can’t run from her past any longer. Together with her sister, Evie, Lex intends to turn the home into a force for good. But first she must come to terms with her siblings—and with the childhood they shared.
What begins as a propulsive tale of escape and survival becomes a gripping psychological family story about the shifting alliances and betrayals of sibling relationships—about the secrets our siblings keep, from themselves and each other. Who have each of these siblings become? How do their memories defy or galvanize Lex’s own? As Lex pins each sibling down to agree to her family’s final act, she discovers how potent the spell of their shared family mythology is, and who among them remains in its thrall and who has truly broken free.
For readers of Room and Sharp Objects, an absorbing and psychologically immersive novel about a young girl who escapes captivity–but not the secrets that shadow the rest of her life.
My thoughts:
I picked this book as my Book of the Month for February and to be honest went in completely blind. From the description I expected a dark psychological thriller like many others I love on the market. What I received from this book was something even more beautiful (yes in a very dark way) and profound!
I expected this book to focus solely on the horrific abuse the 7 Gracie children endured during their childhoods . . . this book instead focused on their stories of resilience, different ways of coping with trauma in their lives, and their stories of survival, relationships, and “family”.
The author’s writing style beautifully blended each of the Gracie children as adults with their stories of abuse and how they each used different coping skills and styles really to survive and continue on with their lives.
Really, really enjoyed this realistic look at how trauma manifests itself differently in different individuals through beautiful story telling that is profound and hopeful yet rightfully dark and horrific at the exact same time.
And remember,
Books Are Life,
Heather
Books Are Life - Vita Libri 