Review: Difficult Read
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 11 10, 2013
I honestly don’t even know how to rate this book after just finish reading it. Let me first start off by saying that I DID read the synopsis of the book and I was aware that it would involve a great bit of abuse based from it. So I knew what to expect. However, I didn’t expect that the book would be as graphic as it was and I also thought that the book would bring about some type of awareness of domestic violence, in the sense of what to do to get help, give advice to women who find themselves in this situation, where to go or how to remove yourself from that type of situation….which is what I think the book really lacked.I think the book focused more on bringing to light that domestic violence is real and in some cases can be as severe as the abuse that Chandra subjected herself to. And I say subjected herself to because it seems like her character was just some weakling of a woman that just succumbed to the abuse and accepted it, instead of finding a way to get herself out of that situation (which I think could’ve been a great way to introduce different real resources or just scenarios of how to successfully survive and remove yourself from abuse situations).Now, being that I work in this field, I can say that domestic violence is very real and that Chandra’s character definitely displayed a lot of what abuse victims go through. However, I think the book was mainly about Chandra getting beat day in and day out and ultimately almost losing her life for it. She was broken down completely and the book never mentioned ways that she could possibly remove herself from the abuse of her husband. She just stayed and didn’t do anything, instead choosing to blame herself (which most abuse victims do). Which in actuality, some abused individuals will at least try once to get away or try to remove themselves.Throughout this whole book I wanted to jump in Chandra’s character and beat Malik myself. I had elevated heart beat and a headache like this was a real story. I just didn’t understand how or why Chandra didn’t try to reach out to her family at least once. All in all, I don’t think that I will be buying part 2 to this series, because I just can’t take the graphic material of the beatings, with no type of real actual awareness of help (or resources) for this type of situation. This was my first book from the author and I won’t say that it’ll be my last because I won’t base her work off of this book alone. But for me, this was just one of the most difficult reads that I’ve experienced and it’s just not something that I want to read another part of.