Chyba pierwsza lektura, w trakcie której co kilkanaście stron fundowałam sobie odruch wymiotny. Opisy poszczególnych zabiegów, którym poddawana była autorka, to pikuś przy charakterystyce ludzkiej natury.
Jednocześnie jestem pełna podziwu, że tak makabryczną historię, można było zawrzeć w tak pięknych (czasem najprostszych, ale czy to źle?) słowach.

Despite all life has waged against her, Julie Gregory has an empowered voice. Here, she details growing up with her mother's obsessed effort to contrive symptoms and illnesses for her, soliciting doctors for drastic and unnecessary tests and treatments. Gregory gives a candid and wise account of the manipulation and emotional abuse inherent in her mother's control and insightfully decodes the psychological ramifications of her victimization. While you get a thorough understanding of this manifestation of MBP, it is keenly apparent that the pathology of this family runs so much deeper. Gregory has a lyrical yet forthright style. She doesn't beg your pity in this pained account of a tortured and stolen childhood. And though I didn't get the sense that her aim was to impose any trite lessons in existentialism, you come to know that she is certainly stronger for all she has endured by the end of her story. As of 2003 when first published, she was bravely pursuing charges against her mother in an effort to remove from her custody the quasi-/common law adopted daughter that she'd claimed as her next victim. I'm quite interested to know what became of that.

An easy read about a very serious subject. Got really touched by Julies story.

Wow. Well, this book can be described with one word- disturbing. It made me sick just reading how Julie was affected by what her mother did. The entire time, I was SO ANGRY at the characters for what they did to Julie- no one should have to live like she did. I wouldn't suggest this to people who don't like to read about child abuse, because this was the ugliest and most disturbing form of abuse I have ever read about.