A good friend lent me this book, because she knew of the abuse from my own childhood. My abuse was not nearly as detrimental as the amount described in the book. To read this was unbelievably hard. I had to read it in increments, as it drudged up many flashbacks of my father that were too painful to recall. As a child going through this living haides, it seems like you're the ONLY one going through this. You torture yourself wondering what is so wrong with you, what about you could possibly be so terrible, that your own parent shuns you away. This book was an amazing read, in the end. I came from a man who only referred to me as 'her,' not his daughter. I stopped being afraid the moment I laid eyes upon him in his casket. Like the author, I too, learned that life can go on... that you can survive it. You can become somebody, not just be an 'It' or a 'Her' for the rest of your life.