This is one amazing book. It's surprising, sensitive, mysterious, confusing, makes no sense but yet it does.
Its writing style is everything I hate in a book - the premise of the book is not stated up front, it's like a murder mystery, and it's poetic.
However, all these contradictions and contrasts are what make this such a great book.

The story is about a woman called Barbara who was the victim of horrendous abuse as a child at the hands of her father. This story is about her journey,
with the help of a counsellor, from a life of isolation and terror to one of healing towards her eventual successful assimilation back into society.

The chapters are short. The early chapters are consistently short which gives the reader a sense of Barbara's difficulty in dealing with the world around her.
Toward the end of the book there are more longer chapters which show a distinct growth in Barbara's healing process.

This book tugged at my heart strings very strongly. I think the reason for this was that Mary Rakow masterfully only gave the reader snippets of what Barbara's
childhood involved which encouraged the reader to keep reading to see what happens next. I found myself both rooting for Barbara to get well as well as hoping
she would take her time - I didn't want to say goodbye to this strong yet fragile woman whom I had come to know and love as closely as though she was my own
friend or family.

This book will forever have a special place in my heart. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to read a book with a difference and lots of
great twists and turns.

5 stars. ( )

enjoyed the prose writing style - novel is about a woman's current life while trying to cope with the past, mostly her childhood. read this years ago, so don't remember it clearly now. ( )