Review by Booklist Review
In this continuation of Ogle's memoir, begun in the YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction Award--winning Free Lunch (2019), Rex is entering high school and parts of his life have improved. His family can now afford food since both parents are working, but physical and mental abuse from Mom and stepdad Sam continues. He details watching Sam throw his mother through a window, feeling compelled to lie that everything is OK when the police investigate, being attacked by his mother with scissors, and attempting to protect his younger brother from the unabated violence. Linking all these incidents is the mystery of what happened to Rex's half sister, Marisa, who was born and died while Rex was away visiting other family--a death that his mother claims is Rex's fault. The events depicted are often excruciating, but Ogle also addresses some of the reasons for domestic violence (including unaddressed trauma and being abused as a child), the decision to interrupt the cycle of abuse, and the need to cut ties completely with one's abuser. While Ogle acknowledges that this will be too intense a read for many, other readers will see themselves in Rex and appreciate the hope he offers: life can get better. Appended with an author's note and referral sources, this should be widely available to anyone who needs it.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
In this vivid, empathic memoir, 1990s teenager Rex often feels that "something bad is just around the corner. Usually it's a fist." Picking up after the events of Free Lunch, the narrative follows Rex as he dodges white stepfather Sam's anger and abuse while attempting to protect his younger brother--and his violent Mexican mother, Luciana, who "isn't well" and blames seven-year-old Rex for the death of her stillborn daughter Marisa, Rex's younger sister. The mystery of the presence of Marisa, who appears to Rex, drives the narrative-in-vignettes. Rex's mother is evasive, but his grandmothers confirm Sam's violence was the real culprit in Marisa's death. In the wake of his parents' on-and-off relationship, Rex struggles with guilt and helplessness, and with his own temptation toward "the darkness." Throughout, Marisa guides and comforts Rex, helping him choose self-preservation. Though the story is often brutal, Ogle's approachable narration reveals a complex picture of multigenerational trauma. Rex's aunt notes, "Every generation has a choice to make. To pass on what they've learned. Or stop it." In the afterword, Ogle makes his own choice clear, offering a beacon of hope to readers trying to survive their own childhoods. Back matter includes resources and a q&a. Ages 13--up. (Oct.)
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Review by School Library Journal Review
Gr 7 Up--"Your sister is dead, and it's your fault." This haunting declaration sets the tone for the author's life when, at age seven, he returns from a three-month stay with grandparents in another state to be forced by his frantic mother to look at photos of his stillborn sister Marisa. In this follow-up to Free Lunch, his 2019 memoir about childhood battles with poverty, Ogle details years of merciless violence--emotional, psychological, and often physical--as mom and stepdad Sam brutalize each other and each of them attacks him. He recounts how, when the police show up at their apartment, he feels pressure to lie to keep the family together for younger brother Ford. Throughout, he is advised and comforted by a fleeting dream of Marisa. Despite all this, Ogle shows a remarkable empathy for his parents, both of them victims of severe domestic abuse in their own childhoods, as well as for his mother's struggle with mental illness and Sam's with alcohol addiction. Frequently coarse and profane language may be off-putting for sensitive readers. Instances of homophobia and anti-Hispanic bigotry (Ogle's mother is Mexican American), amplified by derogatory epithets, nonetheless serve to frame his social isolation. The volume closes with a list of resources for suicide prevention and combating domestic violence, as well as a Q&A with Ogle from earlier this year. Though the subject matter is harrowing and it is at times difficult to continue reading, Ogle's message throughout is focused on survival and hope. VERDICT Highly recommended for all middle and high school collections.--Bob Hassett, Luther Jackson M.S., Falls Church, VA
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
The author of Free Lunch (2019) continues his account of an abusive childhood into adolescence. Reassuring readers in similar situations in the notes he places fore and aft that he survived, and they can too, Ogle focuses here on his home life. Beginning with a flashback to age 7 when he came back from a long stay with grandparents to the news that he would have had a baby sister, but she was dead and it was his fault, he chronicles in explicit detail high school years of screaming matches and vicious beat downs by both his wildly unstable Mexican American mom and alcoholic White stepfather between times when they beat on each other. The little sister he never had (stillborn, it turns out, after a typically brutal parental argument) plays a continuing role in his story, as both a source of crushing guilt, no less devastating for being undeserved, and a ghostly presence who helps him control his own tendency toward outbursts of rage. What emerges in the wake of all the bruises, blood, vomit, denial, and psychological battering is less a feeling of relief that Ogle succeeded in becoming an independent adult, than a sense that, despite the hopeful ending and his speaking of letting go and moving on, his personal journey takes a back seat here to an indictment of the irrecoverably broken grown-ups charged with raising him. Grim reading, with reassurance just the barest glimmer in a nightmarish landscape. (resources) (Memoir. 14-18) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
