At Daddy's Hands: Courage Knows No Age

I respect what this book sets out to do. Before things spiralled - when I'd only just read the first chapter - I appreciated the story very much. It felt poignant and hauntingly realistic and had what appeared to be a terrifying yet vaguely hopeful end. There were only two characters I particularly liked, and I hated both parents, but overall the story seemed to be grounded in (a very depressing part of) reality.

Unfortunately, as the chapters unfolded, things just got incredibly unrealistic. Of the 20 noteworthy characters, only six aren't abusive, negligent, disgusting, or cruel in some way, shape, or form. Most are rapists or rape apologists and some of those are victims themselves. In fact, there's a grand total of one character who suffered abuse and didn't go on to be abusive in some way themself - and even then, that person ultimately committed a heavy crime which forever changed them. (Two victims were periphery characters whose futures and pasts were never disclosed, so I don't feel they can properly count one way or the other for that statistic.) None of the abusers whose histories we learn are that way simply because they're mentally ill or evil; every last one is a victim themselves, and their victimization is portrayed as the catalyst for their own perversions and transgressions.

And all of those people mentioned are somehow tied to this one family. It's just so much that it almost becomes infuriatingly comical how trope-filled and excessive everything feels. Like a Lifetime movie amped to eleven, it starts in a place of realism and awareness then catapults itself into orbit around absurdity, occasionally getting pelted by a meteor shower of insensitivity. The story began to feel more like what the Saw and Hostel movies are to the horror genre: excess for the sake of shock value. I don't think it's the intention at all, but it is unfortunately a result of the stylistic writing choices and decision to double down on traumatic backstories and events so often.

Are there monsters like those in real life? Absolutely! But the chances of every single one of these abusers and horrible people converging into the lives of a single family are so slim that even if this were a true story it'd be hard to swallow as anything other than embellishment. I also take serious issue with the fact that every abuser in this book is portrayed as having originally been a victim - to the point that even one of the characters we initially see as a good person just turns into an abuser as well. It's frustrating and sickening, as the (unintentional) message portrayed is that survivors of these heinous abuses should be scrutinized and feared because they'll become abusers themselves. Even though some do, to portray it as if evil can't just happen because someone is broken and as if all victims ‘get confused' and start abusing others is just insensitive and stigmatizing - the exact opposite of what I think the author intended.

Overall, I think the first chapter is powerful and thought-provoking and potentially even a conversation starter. From there, however, it begins a downhill slide which only stops when the story crashes face-first into a bizarre conclusion which feels weirdly out of place and at times bafflingly tone deaf with the forced air of hope and happiness. Considering that many graphic (and sometimes explicit) depictions of abuse of all varieties - physical, mental, emotional, and sexual - are given along the way and readers are taken inside the heads of all main characters including the titular psycho dad, I can't recommend this book.

I had to watch a character I empathized with and liked become a molester then try to redeem themself by fighting others who did the same thing. I had to watch a mother try to justify why she wouldn't risk everything to protect her children when she knew her husband was doing horrific things to them. I had to watch a monster try to diminish and excuse the damage he'd caused by diverting to the fact he'd been abused in his own past. For that matter, I also had to watch one victim long for the attention's return and another victim try to handwave it all away as ‘he taught me an important life lesson when he hurt me.' And for what? I made myself keep reading in the hopes it'd become a story about healing, vengeance, or justice. I wasn't picky; I'd have taken either of the options, so long as it felt authentic. Instead, the ending felt cheap and unsatisfying... and not worth the experience required to arrive at it.

Honestly, I feel guilty rating this book so low, because I do respect what the author attempted to accomplish and the fact he gave voice to real life survivors' stories at the book's end. But it is what it is and I feel like two stars are the most I can fairly give on goodreads, because that means “it was ok” by the rating scale. For Amazon, I'll round that up to three, since that's more of a ‘slightly negative, somewhat neutral' rating by their standards.

If you're a survivor of self-harm, rape, or abuse, you may want to skip reading this. While it does its job to bring awareness of these topics, it also doesn't pull any punches in describing these things, how the apologists thereof justify them, how the victims perceive them, and what actually plays out during their occurrence. I don't want to get into my own history, but I will say that some elements hit a little too close to home and others just plain made me feel physically ill, even when they weren't familiar. Tread very carefully, and remember to take care of your mental health.