As soon as I heard about this memoir, and its brave title, I knew it was something that I had to read. McCurdy’s book gives a deep insight into the complexities of physical and emotional abuse - exploring the profound emotional effects of loving, needing and hating someone simultaneously. She shows how the behaviours people adopt over decades of abuse just to survive, can be reversed - once the abused person realises that those behaviours are no longer needed in the way that they once were. I think it’s an incredible piece of writing and a gift to anyone who has suffered in an abusive relationship. In an interview McCurdy gave she was asked “how do you tell the truth when the person who hurt you is still alive”, she simply replies “If saying the truth ends a relationship, I think it’s probably a relationship that needs to end.”
23 October 2024
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