Just finished Reading A Child Called It: One Child's Courage to Survive by Dave Pelzer. Its a book I've been wanting to read for a while but hadn't got around to it till earlier when I found it on a shelf at a thrift store. It had been recommended to me various times and also been warned that it was a sad book filled with shocking scenes but it goes beyond what I imagined. It's intense and despite the story's horrible subject matter this book is impossible to put down. It is a gruesome story about a child's brave struggles against his abusive mother which will make you feel sorrow and revulsion.
He begins his story with the end of his abused days; the day he is rescued by the state. Then it goes back to happier days with his family when they had fun trips to the river and great family dinners. His mother quickly changes from picture perfect mother and housewife to an abusive alcoholic mother who beats, abuses, and treats him like a slave.
With all of the abuse details as his mother starves, burns, and stabs him it makes this book hard to read but his courage to survive keeps you from putting the book down, he learns how to play his mothers abusive games in order to survive.
