If I Am Missing or Dead by Janine Latus
This is my first book review, ever, of all time. Momentous! The truth is, I think book reviews are for the most part ridiculous sounding, so I’m going to experiment, have a little fun. I made a description of the book I am currently reading – American Gods by Neil Gaiman – to @Vividlydrawn on twitter and was told that my description inspires a desire for Mexican food.
The tweet was this – @Vividlydrawn I am reading American Gods by Neil Gaiman. It’s pretty good, colorful, a bit spicy and saucy, kind of different. It’s #4.
But this post isn’t about American Gods by Neil Gaiman, or twitter. I’m doing the books in the order I read them, not how much I like them. Because I saw Bambi, and I know that if you don’t have anything nice to say, you should not say anything at all. If I did them in the order of how much I liked them, I would always avoid the ones I don’t like, and that’s wrong. Because you should say things that aren’t nice, sometimes. And this post is TRYING not to be about twitter, but I now feel I should mention – join twitter and follow me! Especially if you’re interesting/entertaining, so you can fuel my addiction.
So, what is this review about? It’s about If I Am Missing or Dead by Janine Latus. It’s the true story of one woman’s journey through physical, emotional abuse, and rape. Her younger sister is also a victim of abuse, and was murdered by her lover.
What I will say about this book is that I finished it in less than 24 hours. I actually read it, lying around on Christmas Day. It felt kind of wrong to be reading such a sad and depressing book on such a jolly, red and green day. But I remember it feeling wrong for eating an entire giant bag of gummy bears and watching Hannah Montannah while reading Lucky by Alice Sebold. I think that I just can’t handle the dark subject matter, unless it’s injected periodically with lighter subject matter. I need to fortify myself and get stronger, because these books make me feel stressed out.
But I do want to tell the truth about how the things I liked/didn’t like, so …
I wish that Latus had of included the reader more in her triumph over her destructive situation. Instead of summazing the preceding years, describing her successes and hard word to overcome the emotional abuse she had suffered for decades, I would have liked to be included as a reader, sharing the joys, rather than just the pains. It would have been nice to read stories from her day-to-day where she felt “Aha!” moments, where she was growing and developping and moving away from the insecure person who had suffered for so long.The book goes into great detail about the extents that emotional and physical abuse can take you, but it would have been valuable to me as a reader to hit the other end of the dichotomy, and go into more detail about the benefits, joys, positive reinforcements that come with recovery.
As for her descriptions of the relationship between her siblings and their father, it was downright creepy. To view the father-daughter dynamic in that disturbing light left me unsettled for days, which is obviously a credit to the way she wrote her story. I was watching “Say Yes To The Dress” and one of the father’s kept poking at his daughter’s vajayjay, complaining about the cut of the dress. I was cringing away from the t.v, hollering “Sick, oh my God, what’s WRONG with him?” and I think it’s because I had read the book only a few days before.
All in all, it was an interesting read, and it did make me re-examine my ideas of feminism. I’ve always considered myself a feminist. I know some people, including women, think of it as the other “F” word, but I think they’re just accepting it as a pejorative term, when it isn’t. It’s not about hairy arm pits and hating women. It’s about believing that women deserve equal respect and equal opportunity, in any work place, in any role, in any country.
So, enough of me rambling on, seeing as Arnold thinks my posts are too long, same as my tags. But I’m a bad ass rebel, so I make both long anyways.
