Mimi Thebo (2004) Hit the Road, Jack. London, Harper Collins 978-0-00-714278-1

 

A young adult fiction book about a teenage boy feeling a misfit at a school and beginning to clash with his mother, wondering if finding his father will help him find himself.

[Trigger Warning: Domestic Violence]

[Spoiler alert]

Jack is a young teenage boy who finds letters from his father to his mother. He has only hazy memories of his father but has heard that he is now living on the streets. He blames his mother for rejecting his father and sets out to find him.

Breaking all the rules he sneaks out after bedtime and meets a cast of interesting characters who are drawn into his search, risking their own safety in doing so.

In finding his drug addicted and homeless father, he recovers memories of the physical abuse his father subjected his mother to – and as a small child he witnessed 

His search reaches a dramatic and dangerous end but cements his friendship with the people who he has met and enables him to find “his tribe”.

This is really heart-warming tale and deals with the recovered memories of the abuse in a way that would be appropriate for a young teenager to read without diminishing the horrific nature of the abuse.

Stacey Jameson (2019) Why Don’t You Just Leave Him? A True Story of Domestic Violence Self Published 978-1-7945-3217-5

 

This is a self-published book by the survivor of an extremely violent abusive marriage. She writes honestly about her account of how she became compliant and accepting as a result of her mother’s abuse of her as a child and how this fed in to her acceptance of a violent relationship and, despite getting up the courage to leave, returns on a number of occasions.

[Trigger Warning: Domestic Violence]

[Spoiler alert]

The story is told by Stacey who details the development of herself as a child emotionally abused by her mother and how this prepared her for accepting a partner and then husband who was abusive.

Stacey meets her future husband as a teenager and goes on to live with him, have a child with him, marry him and have a further child while experiencing a very physically violent and controlling relationship. She is subjected to financial, sexual, physical, emotional and mental abuse. Finally for the sake of her children she leaves and goes to a refuge. Like many survivors she returns to her husband a number of times before she finally finds the strength to leave for good.

The book is an honest and raw account by a very courageous woman.

Nicholas Sparks (2010) Safe Haven. London, Little Brown. 978-0-7515-4852-5

 

The story is one of a woman having fled an abusive marriage and establishing a new life with a new identity, all the time knowing that her husband might track her down.
 
[Trigger Warning: Domestic Violence]
[Spoiler alert]
 
The story is set in the present, with the main character looking back and reflecting on the abuse she suffered at the hands of her husband and constantly looking over her shoulder for any indication that he might have caught up with her. As she gradually begins to feel safe a relationship develops with a local widower and his young children
 
The story is told from two points of view – that of the main character and that of her increasingly deranged ex-husband – until the inevitable happens and he tracks her down leading to a violent, but ultimately “happy”, ending for the main character and her new life.
 
The book has a number of stereotypes, not least that of the police detective as the husband, and the main character having been brought up in a household where she witnessed violence and abuse. The domestic abuse is extreme, both in the elements of control, the violence and the way in which the abuser tracks down his wife.
 
There is a plot twist at the end where the woman the main character portrays is revealed as the ghost her new partners dead wife, guiding her in their relationship.
 
The book was made into a film – billed as a “romantic drama fantasy thriller” starring Julianne Hough as the main character and David Lyons as the abuser. The reviews were, on the whole, negative, described as "schmaltzy, predictable, and melodramatic”. The plot twist particularly came in for a considerable amount of negative criticism.

Delia Owens (2018) Where the Crawdads Sing. London, Corsair. 978-1-4721-5466-8

 

[Trigger Warning: Domestic Violence and Sexual Violence]
 
The theme of this book is not about domestic abuse, but violence towards the mother and siblings of the main character and later in the book, the protagonist is subjected to sexual violence.
 
[Spoiler alert].
 
The story follows the life of a young girl, Kya, abandoned by both parents and her older siblings in the marshlands of North Carolina. The family is brought low by the father’s violence and alcoholism leading all the family to leave, until he himself disappears, leaving Kya alone to fend for herself.
 
Kya survives and eventually thrives with the help and support of a few particular neighbours, including the man she will eventually marry, who teaches her to read. The “Marsh Girl” does however suffer considerable negative attention and is shunned by many of the local townspeople. She is pursued by the local town “jock” and has an affair he keeps secret while making a more socially acceptable marriage. Meeting her later he wishes to continue the affair and sexually assaults her. When he is later found dead, she is implicated, tried but finally acquitted.
 
With the support of her friend, and later husband, Tate, she becomes a well-regarded naturalist, author and artist. Only after her death does her husband find out that she is also a published poet and did in fact commit the murder for which she was tried.
 
Awards:
·        The New York Times Fiction Best Seller 2019 and 2020
·        Listed as Barnes and Nobles Best Books of 2018
·        Sold more print copies than any other adult fiction or non-fiction title in 2019