Parents have a responsibility to love and take good care of their children. Children who grow up in a loveless family become traumatized. This trauma may affect their self-worth and how they relate to different people. If not properly managed, it may even affect their adult lives. Not Letting Go, but Definitely Letting Go: Take Your Power Back, Period! by Wava M. Sisco is a non-fictional memoir that narrates how childhood trauma affected the author's adult life.
Although it only has forty-one pages, this book is divided into seven chapters. The story is narrated from the first person's point of view and in both the past and the present tenses. The themes in this book include family relations, love and betrayal, and spirituality.
Being the second born of a single parent, the author had it rough. First, her mother's boyfriend defiled her and warned her against telling anyone. Her mother, who was very strict and unloving, tried to teach her lessons through embarrassments; she once forced her to return twenty dollars to her neighbor, after being humiliated in school. The author tried to fill the void by dating and sleeping with multiple men. She tried to find love in anyone willing to give it to her. When she was sixteen years old, she had her first lesbian relationship. Will her childhood trauma affect her adult life? Will she find a solution for her distress?
This is a very enjoyable book. I liked how the author narrated her story, holding nothing back. It's difficult to find people who are bold enough to tell the world how messy their lives have been and work on improving the quality of their lives. Second, the author used her life story to pass on a very important message about self-love and how important it is. Third, the author kept her narration short and simple, without including unnecessary information.
Although this is an enjoyable book, it has two flaws. First, it is full of grammatical errors. It's almost as if it wasn't professionally edited at all. I came across over ten grammatical errors in the first four pages of the book. Some of the errors are very obvious and can easily be noticed. For example, the following sentences are found on page thirty-seven:
It feels as thought I have been on a never ending roller coaster.
Second, the author talked about her life and narrated about all the people she hurt but didn't seem remorseful at all. Instead of sympathizing with her, sometimes I found myself hating her.It could feel like it is all to good to be true.
In conclusion, this is a brilliant book. I rate it 3 out of 4 stars. I didn't rate it 4 out of 4 stars because of the grammatical errors. I recommend it to anyone dealing with childhood trauma. I can't think of any groups of people who won't enjoy reading it.
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Not Letting go, but definitely letting go.
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