Time to Stop Pretending: A Mother's Story of Domestic Violence, Homelessness, Poverty - And Escape »

In the passion of this story resounds the brave voice of one woman who harnessed her courage and creativity to overcome seemingly insurmountable misfortunes: domestic violence, poverty, religious dependency, and homelessness. It is a dramatic story-her own account-of quitting school when she was 16 years old to get married, rearing eight children, enduring her husband's abusive treatment, and being homeless with kids in New York City. Although the circumstances and people in this story are unique to one woman, they speak about society as a whole.

KLIATT

There is no dearth of books on domestic violence and the cycle of depression, denial, fear, broken relationships—teens may live it, or hear about its victims on the evening news. And the really devastating reality is how often it becomes part of a family's inheritance, passed from mother to daughter, father to son. One of the most effective antidotes has to be understanding, and this book's first-person narration of a childhood lived under the shadow of abuse and its continuation in the author's own marriage has an even more horrendous impact for its matter-of-fact tone—"this is how it was." Begun as a writing exercise and a symbol of hope when Rodriguez started a new phase of her life in an urban university, the author's poignant personal plea that, though battered women may seem almost impossible to rescue, society should not stop trying, rings loud and clear. The italicized sections that follow some chapters are her reflections on the time of her life just recalled from the perspective of one who found a way to break free: "I'll never understand exactly what it was that made that July day unbearable for me. I escaped. We just left—we hit the streets." Young people who discover Rodriguez's story will smell the hallways, hear the shouts and sirens, feel the pounding heartbeats and the sweaty brows of eight children crowded into a small room hiding—and see that even from having been down so low, it's possible to rise. For those aspiring to careers in social services, law enforcement and other related fields, this is an unsentimental but brutally honest account of domestic violence, and the victims running from the monster on their tail. KLIATT Codes:A—Recommended for advanced students, and adults. 1994, Eriksson, 176p, 20cm, 93-8299, $14.95. Ages 17 to adult. Reviewer: Mary Arnold; MLS, YALSA Vice Pres., Maple Heights Lib., Maple Heights, OH, May 2000 (Vol. 34 No. 3)