Sarah Perry (5)

Wow! Such a tragic story. Sarah Perry openly shares about her mother’s murder when she was 12 years of age. She’s an excellent writer and story teller. She structures her book to fluctuate between her life chronologically before and after her mother’s death. It’s so heartbreaking to have lost her mother at that age and so tragically. To compound her situation, her father was not active in her life and she was bounced between family members living in different parts of the state or even out of state, often at a moment’s notice. I felt such compassion for her to have only felt accepted by family members instead of feeling wanted by them. The quality of the narration definitely brought about a somber vibe that added to the intensity of the story.… (més)

Let’s be real. I think part of the reason we’re fascinated with true crime nonfiction is because we sometimes get to hear directly from the survivors. We get to be witness by proxy. Did they know what would happen? What did they see? How did they feel? Sarah Perry gets into all of this from the start of her memoir and the shock of her mother’s death is real and incredibly sobering. Perry doesn’t shy away from uncomfortable imagery and descriptions (e.g. the “sturgeon” will stay with me for a long, long time).

This is a powerful memoir about the repercussions of unspeakable violence and a daughter piecing together memories of her mother.… (més)