Book cover of When I Was a Girl

Book description

Cursed by her grandmother and trapped in domestic violence in 1960s Britain, Evelyn must find a way to protect her five young daughters. Aware that her firstborn, Kim, is doomed to repeat her own disastrous life choices, Evelyn places her in the care of one of her admirers to protect…

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Why read it?

1 author picked When I Was a Girl as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

This is told in the voice of a young girl living in a household of domestic violence in the 1960s in UK.

She is regarded as presenting difficulties for her parents right from the beginning with her difficult birth. It is written in short scenes and excerpts from her childhood. She adores her mother, but she is sexually assaulted by one of her mother’s boyfriends. The writing of this is realistic as seen by an innocent four-year-old girl.

When the mother marries another boyfriend the family dynamics change from being kind at first to much stricter. It is clear that…

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December on 5C4 by Adam Strassberg,

Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!

On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…

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