Title Thirty Five: If I Am Missing Or Dead by Janine Latus

Look, I'm going to come right out and say it: this book was stupid. I feel very bad for the author and the fact that she suffered from such low self-esteem and that a shitty childhood with her pervy father led her into a marriage with a disgusting, abusive, nasty pig who thinks of nothing but fucking her after she has surgery to make her tits bigger because he wants them to be. It's a vile stream of recollections from someone who unfortunately spent most of her life trying to live up to or hide behind the images of herself that the men in her life have created. I'm sorry that Latus suffered this way for so many years, and only found the guts to claw her way out of the vicious cycle a couple of months before her beloved younger sister, who lived her life in much the same way, was murdered by her boyfriend. I just don't see the point to this book, I really don't. There isn't enough redemption to balance out the filth oozing off the page. I wanted to take a shower with a Brillo pad after I finished it. Again, I'm not mocking the plight of victims of domestic and sexual abuse; I just don't want to read page after page about it without there being something more substantial at the end than "after living with it for years and years and years and knowing something was wrong I finally got out." Latus is a writer for a living; this book should be better. I bought it because I thought it would have more to do with her sister Amy, and it didn't, so maybe that's why I'm so annoyed, but it's just a disappointment.