So I just finished another great book by Cathy Glass. Its called the girl in the mirror. This is a novel, not a foster care memoir. It was interesting to read a novel of Cathys. I must say I didn’t find the novel as good as all of her foster care memoirs, but I did like it and I would still recommend it. The book went a little bit more slowly though and I did not find it to be a page turner.
The book is about Mandy, a 20 something who is an artist. She’s taken a career break for a year to paint more, but she seems to be having trouble painting anything. At the beginning of the book her grandpa falls ill, and her father asks her if she wants to go visit him. She goes, and ends up staying to nurse him. He’s staying with her aunt and uncle, whom she used to visit as a child regularly, but 10 years ago her parents stopped her from visiting and she doesn’t remember why. When she arrives at the house she starts having flashbacks, weird thoughts, images, etc. She cant figure out why she’s having the memories. A lot of the book focuses on her sick grandpa, and towards the end he dies, but the majority of the chapters focus on him, his illness, and on the care he is receiving from the family. In the end Mandy does remember, and when she does, she remembers vividly. She remembers being almost raped, and she thinks its her uncle that raped her. But it wasn’t, it was his brother. Before she remembers, she asks her gran, and the local shopkeeper to tell her why it is her parents and aunt and uncle stopped talking, and why it was her visits to them stopped when she was 13. But they keep telling her she’ll have to ask her father. After she remembers, she becomes very depressed, and after that, she decides to confront her uncles brother, her abuser. She searches him out, and then goes to visit him. But it turns out he’s dead. It turns out he abused not only her but his own daughter, and another friend of his daughters too. Mandy is really upset to find this out. In the end of the book she moves in with her boyfriend, whose name is Adam, and tells him of what happened to her as a child. All through the story she has mixed up feelings about touch, about adam, and she keeps giving him the cold shoulder. But he stays with her and when she tells him he’s shocked and saddened.
I did like the book despite the slowness of it. It didn’t build until near the middle of the story. But I still think it was good, I’d still recommend it to people. I do think though that Cathy is best writing memoirs and not as good at writing novels.
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