Because they owe someone money, Noriko's parents agree to consider an arranged marriage between her and Kazuhito Shito. Kazuhito is handsome, kind, and wealthy. The marriage's main drawback is that Noriko would be expected to move away from her small town and live with Kazuhito and multiple generations of his family in their home in Tokyo. It makes Noriko nervous, but Kazuhito is wonderful and everyone in his family seems so nice when she meets them. In the end, she agrees to the marriage.

Everything goes well, for a while. Nobody's personality suddenly changes - everyone is just as friendly as when she and Kazuhito first met. It does turn out that Kazuhito wasn't immediately forthcoming about his mentally handicapped younger brother and bedridden grandfather, which Noriko worries is a sign that she'll be roped into being their caretaker, but thankfully that isn't the case. Everyone in the family supports each other, and disagreements are resolved by the family matriarch, Great Granny Ei.

Two months after her marriage to Kazuhito, Noriko's peaceful life is interrupted by the arrival of a man from the nearby area. It turns out that the Shitos are his landlords and he hopes to get permission to pay his rent a little late this month. He also wants to tell Noriko something important but is interrupted by one of the Shitos before he gets the opportunity. After that, Noriko visits her parents for the first time since her marriage and comes back to discover that the man and his entire family died in a fire. It's arson, a suspected suicide, but Noriko begins to wonder. What had the man wanted to tell her? Did the Shitos murder him to prevent him from talking?

I wanted to read this for several reasons: the cover art was intriguingly cryptic (after finishing the book, I still have no idea what anything on the cover except maybe the little line is supposed to be), the author is a woman (it seems like most Japanese fiction translated into English is by male authors), and I had read several reviews that referred to this as Japanese gothic fiction.

I really enjoyed the bulk of this book. The mystery was intriguing, and the slightly off atmosphere was wonderful. When Noriko was at the Shito family home, it was easy to forget that this was a contemporary-set novel - it made the house ever-so-slightly claustrophobic, which intensified as Noriko's suspicions began to pile up. Were the Shitos really as pleasant as they seemed? What was the real purpose of Great Granny's private meetings with members of the nearby community? Was the relationship between Kazuhito's sister and mentally handicapped brother really as incestuously close as it seemed?

Unfortunately, the mystery was somewhat ruined by Nonami telegraphing important details too soon. I spent much of the book thinking "Okay, Noriko and I both suspect that __ is going on, but since that explanation is pretty obvious, surely the truth must be something else?" Except it wasn't. There were a couple surprises, but I think the ending would have had much more of an impact if the things Noriko spent most of the book suspecting had been more different from what was actually going on.

I did find the process by which the Shitos made Noriko one of them unsettling and disturbing (content warning for on-page gaslighting and abuse, particularly emotional and mental), but that, too, didn't have as much impact on me as it should have had, not even after the fates of a couple other characters were revealed. I found important aspects of the ending to be very difficult to swallow. The more people who know a secret, the harder it should be to keep, and the Shito family secrets had reached a point where the police should have heard something and gotten involved. And yes, the family was rich, but surely they couldn't afford to bribe everyone?

This book had a lot of promise and could have been amazing, but unfortunately it fell a little flat for me in the end. Still, I enjoyed the bulk of it and don't regret reading it. I intend to try another one of the author's works at some point in the future.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)

I don’t  know why I ever chose to torture myself and willingly read A CHILD CALLED IT,  but Dave Pelzer broke something inside me – I haven’t been right since.  Knowing that, you’d think I’d have learned a lesson, (yeah, I know… I’m audibly laughing right now, too).  Nope. Years after ‘ACCI’ I decided that I wanted to read THE GIRL NEXT DOOR, and I let Jack Ketchum walk right in and start poking at the wound that David Pelzer left with a big, pointy stick.  I think it was the masochist in me who invited Mendal W. Johnson to drop by and sucker-punch my PTSD in the back of the head.  As far as the ‘Let’s Go Play At The Adams‘ fiction/non-fiction debate’ goes – I’m sticking with IT’S FICTION, but I’m sure all the atrocities have been committed, many times, and on many different Barbaras. 
Like LGPATA, THE ABUSE OF ASHLEY COLLINS is not a true story – but it very well could be. Watching the decreasing sanity, and the elevating brutality of Ashley’s parents demonstrates just how fast situations can escalate. One little poke at the wrong moment, and all control is lost – you can’t come back from certain things.

THIS IS A WORK OF FICTION. It is disturbing, and hard to read at times, but the author is not exploiting issues to gain shock value for a horror story. Jon Athan comes at the story from every possible angle, from every p.o.v., and sheds light on problems that most families would keep hidden in the dark. Let me misquote one of my favorite movies before you start reading…

WARNING: This book contains scenes of graphic violence, including violence towards children. This book is about abuse—verbal, physical, and emotional. This book does not feature any explicit sex scenes, but it does discuss sexual abuse. This book is not intended for those easily offended or appalled.

Ashley Collins, a sixteen-year-old girl, has severe behavior issues. She regularly fights with her parents, Logan and Jane. When the fights become personal and physical, Logan and Jane decide to take matters into their own hands. They chain their daughter in the basement and abuse her in an attempt to rescue her from her bad behavior… while delving into their own deviance and depravity.

This is a story of family and abuse. This is a story of violence and discipline. This is the abuse of Ashley Collins.

Jon Athan, author of A Family of Violence, brings you an uncompromising vision of human horror. Can the cycle of abuse be broken?

Find The Abuse of Ashley Collins on Goodreads, Amazon, and it’s available through the KU program.

Connect with the author via Twitter – @Jonny_Athan, Facebook,  through the officialJon Athan Website, or his author pages on Goodreads, BookLikes, LibraryThing  &Amazon. You can email him directly at: info@jon-athan.com, or head on over to the West Coast and start stalking him the old fashioned way!

As I got several pages into Shine, Not Burn I realized something. I had read it before. It was originally published in 2013. Hum… Yep. That is when I read it, when it first came out. The new edition I received through Netgalley is a reedited, republication.

So what did I think of the book this go-round? Honestly, it is good and bad. And that whole ‘good and bad’ thing can’t really be separated out. You see, what is good about it is also bad, and vice versa. Andie is a seriously broken woman, trying to hold herself together the best way she can. After being brutally abused as a child and teen by her mother’s revolving door of drunken, sadistic boyfriends, she decides that, in order to gain control over her life she must work out a lifeplan. A lifeplan that will focus her mind and her actions, allowing her to reach set goals at set times. And so far? So far, the plan has been working out. She got into college, flew through law school with honour, and basically is kicking backside on her way to being the youngest junior partner at her quality law firm.

But then, her friends Candice and Kelly decide that she should tag along with them for Kelly’s bachelorette party in Las Vegas. . . Oy. She really doesn’t want to go. To say that she is a caricature of the overworked, stuffy lawyer is putting it mildly. But off she goes to Vegas, where she meets a cowboy, falls madly in lust, and, well, you get the picture. And she doesn’t remember much the next morning.

Fast forward two years and the guy who dumped her the day she left for Vegas because she went against his wishes and went with her “useless” girlfriends instead of “minding” his orders and staying home, isn’t in the picture any longer. Nope. It is the guy that she and her assistant and girlfriends despised with a passion ‘back then’. A soulless wanker, but he ‘gets’ her lifeplan, works with her to meet her goals, and is willing to create the 2.5 kids and the shared partnership. So what if he hates her friends, hates her assistant, and, yeah, that whole soulless wanker thing? And she ‘doesn’t even remember’ that she used to despise the guy – he fits in the little box, so it’s all good.

We already know all about the Vegas wedding she didn’t remember . . . and the ‘fix it quick before the fiancée finds out’. The rest of the book, starting with the trip to Oregon to get the divorce papers signed, is amusing in many ways. A lot of the storyline is given away in the blurb about the book, so there isn’t a lot to say about that.

What is to say has to do with how Elle Casey handles Andie and her issues. To be honest, like her friends I also wanted to shake Andie until her head rattled. She was abused as a child, that is true. And it explains her rabid need for total control off her life. But instead of growing beyond that, she suffers from “doormat disease” – getting with a guy and allowing him to totally control her – much like her mother’s abusive boyfriends. And in order to meet her goals, she accepts it. She gives up her girlfriends who try to help her see what she is doing to herself, and plows ahead with her ‘plan’ no matter how everyone around he tries again and again to show her what the most recent soulless wanker is turning her into. I can understand the lifeplan – but what is a lifeplan if you wake up one day and realize you never had a life? Come on, girl. Ever consider a therapist instead of marrying an obsessive, controlling prig? You really want to have kids with this guy?

I can understand Andie, but I couldn’t make myself like her. She was too weak, too determined to continue to destroy any chance of a real life in order to stick with that list she was so fond of. Gavin “Mack” Mackenzie and his family are beautifully drawn and likeable, as are the characters Andie runs across in Oregon. What I finally felt at the end of the book? Pretty much the same thing I felt the first time I read it. Mack was too good a guy for Andie. Sorry about that. I am usually much more forgiving of women who have been abused in such a way, and I honestly understand her obsession with her lifeplan – to a point. But when she absolutely, unequivocally refuses to acknowledge that her lifeplan is making her absolutely miserable at this point and she still sticks to it, no matter that she knows that it isn’t working out? Meh. She devolved into an immature child, with the emotional maturity of a six year old having a tantrum and holding her breath to get her way. It disappointed me and took what could have been a good book into a dark place.

I received this book from Netgalley in exchange for a realistic review. All thoughts are my own. If you enjoyed you review, please “Like” on Amazon. It helps draw attention to the books I review. Thank you.

“Triangulation: a tactic used by narcissistic parents to change the balance of power in a family system. For example, rather than allowing two siblings to work together, the Narcissistic Parent insists that he or she be the go-between. This controls the way the information flows, the way it is interpreted, and adds nuances to the conversation.” – Band Back Together, adult children of narcissistic parents resources

“Bad things do happen; how I respond to them defines my character and the quality of my life. I can choose to sit in perpetual sadness, immobilized by the gravity of my loss, or I can choose to rise from the pain and treasure the most precious gift I have - life itself.” -- Walter Anderson

What do we naturally forget, and what do we force from our minds, wipe the slate clean, when it comes to our childhood? Where in our minds is the blackness and pain packed away, hidden? Behind locked doors? Or in solid chests, pushed to the back of the mind, covered in dust and ashes, only to crack open, leaking out poisons that eat away at body, mind and soul, tiny currents, lapping away at the foundations of life until it is simply not worth living any longer. Crippled lives, crippled relationships. And the pain. The pain, constant and unyielding, thrumming in the background, dark drums in the night, throbbing … throbbing … throbbing …

But the guilt? The guilt is, in a way, can be even more debilitating. You are never enough. Never good enough, never sane enough, never pretty enough or smart enough not  not      not. . .

The thing is, Dani Wilde doesn’t even know she is damaged. You see, she doesn’t remember. She thinks things are fine.  Her life is finally opening up. The four younger brothers she raised are taken care of, all grown up, have good positions, and even the youngest is graduating from college. Finally, finally she can reach for her own dreams. She can take her skills at marketing and accept the position at a New York firm that has been following her through her career as a freelance marketing specialist in Montana. Dani is responsible for keeping the cherry farm her family owns financially stable. She cooks and cleans for a family of six, runs a store featuring local products, runs an online business selling the stores wares, and has a separate business as a marketing specialist for local businesses. She never stops working, never stops caring for others. Just. Never. Stops. But now? Now she can have the life she gave up when her mother died in a car accident, a death that brought Dani back from her full ride at Columbia to take over the household on their cherry farm and raise the four brothers that her mother left behind. These are good time, wonderful times. Dani can finally have a life which doesn’t include having to be everything to everyone else.

But.

Something is happening inside her. Flashes of memory, scenes in her mind that can’t possibly be real.
 
Can they?

The door is opening, the chest creaking as the top rises.  The dust is blowing away. And what crawls out of the darkness, pale and ephemeral, could very well destroy Dani. And the larger that shadowy presence grows in her mind, the wider the opening, the darker the memories . . . Memories that will literally rip her life to shreds, destroying everything she ever thought about herself, her family, her very life.

The pain .  .   .

I am not ashamed to say that I cried like a baby over this book. It took me a couple of days to even write this review. Looking back, this almost sounds like a horror story, doesn’t it? And in a way, it is. But it is also a story of incredible inner strength, a story of just how devastating the actions of one member of a family can be upon the lives of all around them. Especially the lives of their own children. This book hurt on a level that is hard for me to even explain.

But that isn’t a bad thing. You see, it is nearly impossible for anyone who hasn’t been there to understand just how Narcissistic Personality Disorder in a parent can shatter the very soul of a child. And that is what this family has suffered, though Dani doesn’t even remember it. And when she does, when her memories finally return, here it becomes not just Dani’s story, but the story of a family so deeply damaged that they may never be completely healed. But it is also a story of a family finding their way towards that healing, towards understanding and relearning how to love one another.

This is, on the surface, a ‘sweet, home town romance.’ And yes, there is romance here. But what makes it SO much better than a ‘boy meets girl’ romance is the cast of characters. Armed with a sharp and unrelenting pen, Kim Law draws a picture of family life that is far from perfect. And it isn’t just Dani’s family that is far from Norman Rockwellesque. Ben was Dani’s first love, first lover, and best friend ten years ago. But one single night separated them. Now Ben, who had his own issues with the coldness and disregard of his famous actress mother finds himself the single father of a four-year-old little girl who is dropped off on his doorstep one day like a load of laundry by a mother who never looks back. Bringing her back to Montana where he spent as much time as possible at one time with the Wilde family, he is looking for some way to connect with the child.

Yes, all of these people are heartbreaking. And all of them – all of them – even the ones I wanted to hit over the head with a very large rock, are worth spending time with. Worth coming to know, coming to understand – if for no other reason than to understand your own heart, your own pain. And some of them? Some of them are worth loving so very much simply for their ability to continue to survive, continue to love, to even know how to love under the crushing weight of betrayals beyond comprehension. This is what makes this book so very heartbreaking – and so very, very worth reading.

This is a six tissue read, and I have to say, when I finished it? I felt, well, cleaner. Like one of the many wounds in my soul had been lanced and bled, and can now heal. Not all, but you know what? As Ms. Law says in her postscript, “You’re not alone. You’re a survivor. You got dealt a rotten hand in life. But you can move on.” Watching her characters do just that? Well, that is the very definition of cathartic.

I received this book from the publisher in exchange for a realistic review. Here is the skinny. If you are looking for a ‘simple’ romance story, this isn’t it. If you are looking for a well written book with a strong story, wonderful characters, a realistic look at the damage a serious but under acknowledged disorder can cause, well, you are in for a true treat. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

If you like my review, I would really appreciate it if you would click to “Like” my review here and on Amazon when the book is published on the 28th. It helps draw attention to my reviews, which helps the authors I review garner more readers. Thank you!

NO STARS! Coming out on July 20 - I suggest you avoid it at ALL costs.

For me, I always wonder what’s worse: an emotional betrayal or a physical betrayal? That’s a really tough call. – Hilarie Burton

Tragedy in life normally comes with betrayal and compromise, and trading on your integrity and not having dignity in life. That’s really where failure comes. – Tom Cochrane

It’s particularly hard to take being stabbed in the back close to home. There’s always a feeling of betrayal when people of your own group oppose you. – Catharine MacKinnon


I have begun to notice a disturbing trend in romance novels lately. For example, let us examine the case of Lillie and Nick. Totally devoted to one another since Lillie was six. Friends, playmates, companions. Then high school lovers. Then totally devoted live-in fiancées. Then, thing turn bad.

Observe.

Every night, after her own day of university classes and working long hours on her feet in her family café, she waits for his return from his residency shift at Baylor Medical, only to be met with cold indifference.

“Maybe that’s the danger in loving someone too much: you’re so blinded by it that you can’t see what’s already over until one side of the bed is empty and cold.”

Constant cold, sifting into her body, leaching away her soul. Her beloved friend, confidant, companion, lover, despises her. The man she knew no longer lives in this body. No longer talks with her.

“Everything’s fine." Or, "If I wanted to talk about it, I’d say so." Or his personal favorite, "Leave it alone, Lillie."

And then one day, she learns something terrible. Something heartbreaking and devastating about her family. He adores her father, Jackson, who took the place of the father he never had. Surely he will talk with her, be once again the friend and devoted companion she has known all those years. They can find a way to work through this, right? Right? But he doesn’t come home, not until the wee small hours, long after his shift is done.

Where has he been? "Out." The age-old response of the cheat, the drunk – or the person who doesn’t love you enough to want to come home any longer, and just doesn’t have the guts to tell you it’s over.

But still, she tries to reach out to him, to draw him back to her. But.

“I don’t have the energy to do this right now.” “Save it … You spend your days serving pie to people in a diner, so excuse me if I don’t see why this conversation can’t wait…”

He grabbed the plate off the coffee table and threw it against the wall.

Great. The introduction to physical violence, as well as emotional.

Devastated, scorned by the man she loves with her whole heart, by her own family and those she thought to be friends, she packs. Packs, and leaves for the airport. She takes the first plane out, Chicago, just because, “they are boarding now, you can make it if you hurry.” For five years, she has no one to lean on, no one to hold her when she cries, to help her through her pain or help her to find her laughter again. Finally, she is successful, on a partner track with her firm, and has found a kind, considerate, gentle lover. He isn’t Nick, but he is loving, open, kind – and he is safe. Safe from the pain, the upheaval, the not knowing what is in his heart and mind, what cruelty will pour from his mouth at any moment. No icy silences. No nights of returning long hours after his shift is done with no explanation, no words. She is content. Maybe not blissfully, passionately happy. But content. Something she hasn’t been in a very long time.

Then, her father, Jackson, sends a text message, and she finds herself back in Dallas, terrified for his health and safety. But, funny old thing that. The text was a lie – a lie designed to bring her back to Dallas, to her old life, no matter her career, her coming promotion to partner in the most prestigious firm in Chicago, her life, her new relationship – no matter the agony of coming back to friends and acquaintances who blame her for leaving. Blame her for “giving up.” Well, of course. When one leaves, the other can act in any manner, say anything, and the one who left? Well.

Lillie comes back to disdain and blame. To cruelty and lies, betrayal and poisoned tongues couched in “Why Suuugar… we know what’s best for you, Bless Your Heart!," and a constant chorus of, “It’s your fault” “What did you do to fix it?” “You gave up on him, he didn’t give up on you.” REALLY??? Where they in the room all those nights he went out of his way to hurt her, when he wasn't simply ignoring her?

You weren’t patient enough. You weren’t giving enough. You weren’t understanding enough. You weren’t you weren’t you weren’t… And of course, “It’s about you, your life, the choices you’re making. Jackson (and everyone else, supposedly) only wants what’s best for you.”

Well, what everyone ELSE thinks is “best for you.”

Back to the land where women like Sullivan Grace Hasell reside – “better known as Ms. Bless Your Heart for her uncanny ability to insult the sin out of someone but mask it as a compliment swathed in a little southern flair.” And a whole lot of bullying, demeaning, snarky remarks, and lies on top of lies. For her own good, of course. . .

It’s. All. Her. Fault. She left. She didn’t try hard enough. She wasn’t forgiving enough. She wasn’t patient enough. She wasn’t she wasn’t she wasn’t – SHE is to blame, it is all on her, all her fault, and 'Poooor little Nick suffered oh, so much after she so cruelly walked out on him without a backwards glance and made herself a new life, and sin of sins, learned to be happy!

Well, Bless Your Heart!

And thus, the crux. All. Her. Fault. Her very soul was being sucked from her body by a man who showed her every day, and in every way, he cared nothing about her, considered her a burden, a lesser being, a horrible mistake made by a child that a man realizes is just that – a mistake – one he doesn’t even care about enough to tell to run back home to her father as he doesn’t want her any more. Was she supposed to reside forever upon this black and endless plain of existence, devoid of love, of kindness, of warmth? Was she supposed to stay, until and after the thrown crockery became thrown punches?

Lillie was one of the bravest people I have read when shee stood up, pulled up her big girl panties, and took her broken heart and shattered life and became someone completely new – someone who would not ever let herself be hurt like that again.Well, supposedly. But she still returns to find that SHE is the one to blame for “Poor Nick – your betrayal, your running away, your cowardice, broke the man, Bless Your Heart!” And the worst part? She starts to believe it. To believe that she is everything that the people who should love and support her say she is. They rip away at her self-esteem, her self-respect, her very sense of self, browbeating her, saying incredibly cruel, vicious things to her, and calling it "friendship" - Bless your little ol' pea-pickin' heart!

And that is just Wrong.

Things happened while she was gone – but instead of open, honest interaction she is faced on every side by lies, both outright and by omission. While everyone "claims" to care for her, no one is willing to give her respect, to accept that there was not only one side to the story. That just possibly, Lillie had to save herself when she could no longer save "them".

Give me a fucking break. In the words of mighty Hamlet, “therein lies the rub.” It is the woman’s fault – no matter the situation. No matter if she can no longer see the way across the night dark plains, the light has faded, and the beasts are upon her. It. Is. Her. Fault.

REALLY?!?!?!

Parts of From Scratch are funny, touching, and positive. But the overall feel of encouraging women to return to a 1950’s mindset where emotional and physical abuse are not only commonplace but normal, where women are expected to conform to a backward society’s mores, no matter the pain to herself, is terrifying.

I received this book in return for a realistic review. I wouldn’t normally be so brutal, but this book sends terrible, horrible, very not good messages about a woman’s place in society and in personal relationships – about how it is acceptable to blame women for wrongs brought on by their partners, their families, their friends. About how said family and friends are perfectly justified in blaming, lying, belittling, withholding life and death information. About punishing the victim. This could have been a funny, wise, thoughtful book – instead, it comes across as a call to returning women to the dark ages of a lack of social justice and emotional disregard.

In other words? THIS. BOOK. SUCKED.