Author: Lisbeth Zornig Andersen; Trans: Mark Mussari
Genre: Memoir
Publisher: AmazonCrossing
Publication Date: March 3, 2020
Book Description: An empowering memoir of resilience and redemption, and the rage that helped a girl escape the darkness of a harrowing childhood.
Born to a violently dysfunctional home in working-class Denmark, Lisbeth Zornig Andersen and her three older brothers were bounced between foster care and state-run institutions, then back again to their chemically dependent mother and sadistic stepfather. For Lisbeth, it was a childhood without perimeters. It was blighted by poverty, sexual abuse, neglect, betrayal, and further victimization by the broken Danish social services system that forced Lisbeth to live where and how it saw fit. Coming of age with a myriad of fears and emotional disorders, Lisbeth had three things that would become driving forces in her life: she was extraordinarily bright, extremely willful, and exceptionally angry.
From hell to liberation, this is Lisbeth’s emotional and galvanizing memoir told in two voices: that of a young girl who was unwanted, challenged, and defiant, and that of a woman who channeled her rage into a positive force as a passionate advocate for children’s rights. Whatever darkness defines the past, it can be used to change the future. Lisbeth’s heart-wrenching and ultimately uplifting journey is proof.
Rating: 3 Stars
Review: I can’t imagine what Lisbeth Andersen went through growing up. She has taken the time to write this story of her growing up in an extremely dysfunctional home in Denmark.
Andersen focuses on her as a little girl to the age of eighteen. Her parents were divorced early on. She lived with her alcoholic mother and step-father. She was sexually abused by different people, which makes me sick. She was put into foster homes, and even taken away from good families.
What Andersen managed to survive is simply amazing. I know that this had to be hard book to write. My one criticism is that at times I felt like she just skimmed the surface. I wanted to understand more. However, this is her story and she must tell it the way she needs or wants to.
There are a lot of trigger warnings, as mentioned above, so this book may not be suitable for everyone. If you are somebody that can read this, I think you will get a very gritty memoir.
Thank you NetGalley and Amazon Crossing for an Advanced Reader’s Copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Obsessed Bookaholic 