Believe Like a Child by Paige Dearth
Published: June 22nd 2011
Publisher: Createpace
Page Count: 426
Synopsis: Alessa is just seven years old when her uncle rapes her for the first time. As the years pass, his sexual appetite becomes more voracious and his perversion more twisted, until the abuse has become almost a daily ritual, with the unspoken involvement of the girl's mother.
At the age of sixteen, after the death of her only friend, Alessa finds herself at the mercy of her real-life monster, with no relief in sight. She flees her home to escape this hell, only to find herself descending into a more dangerous one. Alone and helpless in the streets of North Philadelphia, she encounters more human predators who want to take over her life and devour her. About to hit rock bottom, Alessa manages to break away from her new tormentors and finds refuge in a shelter for homeless and abused women.
Wherever she goes, however, trouble keeps seeking her out, until she meets three people who change the course of her life forever. Though Alessa's bittersweet journey is perpetually fraught with challenges, she does, nevertheless, manage to find fleeting moments of joy along the way. But as she begins to settle down, a ghost from the past comes to haunt her again, threatening to destroy the very foundation of her small world and plunging her back into an abyss of despair, until she makes her final bid for escape.
Review: I honestly do not think I've felt such a range of emotions throughout a book before, it has left me somewhat speechless As I was finishing up reading it I burst into tears, not just because what had happened on the page in front of me but because I'd held back such strong emotions throughout the every page, it certainly becomes a weight and really touches your heart. Sounds silly I know. This story follows Alessa throughout her roller coaster of a life - and by this I don't mean its thrilling and exciting, I mean it has plenty of ups and downs - a few of my friends asked myself how I could possibly sit, read, by choice, and enjoy a book where rape and abuse happens for what feels like 80% of the book and I felt a little lost and first because it does seem an absurbed thing to do when I choose to read to relax and as first I did struggle getting through pages of the book but soon I found the more I read, the harder the book was to put down, whilst what I was reading was far from pleasant it was interesting, interesting to see how Alessa not only handled herself and the situations she was faced with time and time again, but to see how as a person she grew, bloomed if you will, into this amazing woman. Not only that, we can't simply sit back and pretend things like this don't happen, because they do and you'd have thought by now the world would have changed but its probably something that's never going to happen, no matter how hard we all wish. Anyway back to Alessa and her story, like I said it really is a tragedy, but on her journey she gains a new family and gets to live and cherish a life that we all take for granted. It is an amazing book. I'm not even going to delve into the ending which led me tears, that is something you're going to have to read about for yourself. But just remember no matter how insignificant you feel, if you will it enough you can change your life and the lives of those around you and make a difference in this world. I really really recommend this book and that's why I'm giving it a 4.5 star rating, I can't quiet commit to the full 5 but wow, it's just amazing.
