This is such a page turning memoir, I found it hard to stop, I wanted to make sure Jeannette was okay and had escaped this life of neglect and abuse before I put down the book. Based on the authors childhood this story tells of some extreme parenting. I found it shocking that parents who were capable of such bad treatment of their children were also capable of some really lovely qualities too (mainly the dad) perhaps this made things harder for the author than experiencing parents that were all bad.. I felt that whilst their dad had some extremely traumatic parts to his childhood that would obviously affect his ability to be a stable adult and parent, the mum seemed to come from a relatively wealthy and well cared for background which made me feel disgusted at her treatment of her children. ( One instance in particular but I don't know how to do spoiler tags) Jeannette is a talented story teller and survivor and deserves sainthood for having her mother live with her and her husband (in real life) now, I would not be so charitable under those circumstances.