Rating: 
Summary: Touching
Review: Perhaps the best memoir I've read since Rikki Lee Travolta's heart aching "My Fractured Life" which I personally consider one of the best books of the past 5 years. This is that good. If you liked "My Fractured Life," you will like this one. It will hurt you to read some of it but you'll come out a better person.
Rating:
Summary: Compelling memoir
Review: Gregory's prose is so deep, I liken it to the raw emotion felt in 'Girl Interrupted'. This is a horrible case of child abuse, and it is a miracle how the author survived. This is a biography as powerful as 'Sybil' but even more horrifying.A wonderful moving book that needs to be savored by women and men alike.
Rating:
Summary: Sickened and Painfully Recovered
Review: This is the saddest book of child abuse I have read since
Christina Crawford wrote " Mommie Dearest " a quarter of a
century ago.It was written by Julie Gregory so eloquently,I
could not put it down.
Julie's mother convinces her, that she ( Julie )is an
invalid and must take medications like attenlol 25mg.,for
her heart.The medications make Julie feel sick and tired
most of the time.Sometimes the dose is doubled according to
her mother ((Sandy's) whim.This is what Munchausen by Proxy
is about.A caretaker,in this case the mother makes a helpless
child suffer, in order to garner attention for herself and
have re-affirmation from a Doctor in authority.
It is the worse scenario of child abuse,because it goes
unrecognized.
The father,who has been diagnosed as schizophrenic,does
not allow the mother to refer to their son,several years
younger than Julie as sickly,and nearly kills her the one
time she mistakenly does.This saves Danny some abusiveness.
The children witness these savage fights.
The family lives isolated in a trailer with concrete walls
and additions.The mother takes in veterans and foster
children,thereby making money for herself and wastes it on
pairs of hundreds of shoes,for herself and lifesize
ceramic animals for the trailer.
The foster chidren are mistreated, and the mother encourages Julie also to physically hurt them-but Julie has human feelings
and only pretends to.Her Mother thinks this will bind Julie toher,making them closer.
Julie has no girlfriends,and the one time she did confide
in a new friend,the results were disastrous.Her new friend
did not believe her and dropped her after telling most
of Julie's classmates, that Julie made up stories.
By this time, Julie has reached her teen years.Her mother
continues to make sure she is sickly,and has had a heart
catherization performed on her.
Sandy, then convinces a physician to do a deviated septum repair
of the nose and to shape it less Roman.In other words,
repair the septum,so she can breath, then for no reason improve her nose structure.
Deviated septum repair is more painful than most people
realize.People used to be hospitalized four days and it was a
last resort for polyps and painful sinusitis. Most people decline having it done,when the procedure is described to
them.
I almost stopped reading at this point,but continued,
after checking the picture of Julie on the back flap of her
book.
I did this several times to re-assure myself,that Julie
survived her horrendous childhood.
There is a great deal more to the story,but suffice it to say
Julie survived this horrible Munchausen by Proxy.
Through,educating herself,and staying away from the woman
who was her mother,Julie states,she rose like a Phoenix
from the ashes.After much time and therapy,she checks out
Mama again, to convince herself,to look for change, for
apology?
Sandy,her mother,has adopted two children in Montana.
Nothing has changed but location.
Julie bravely saves their lives armed with her childhood
files and evidence from Ohio's childrens services.Julie who has grown into a beautiful woman with an ethereal quality, has
given us her story so we the public,and the professionals
she teaches,are made aware of this insidious abuse of helpless
children by their caretakers.
Thank You,Julie,and may the rest of your life be better.
Rating:
Summary: Moving and Inspiring
Review: A moving yet tragic story about the dangers of a parent's afflictions on their child. Truly horrific to read, yet oddly beautiful in regards to the author's survival. In the same class of survival and abuse stories as White Oleander, Nightmares Echo, and My Fractured Life.
Rating:
Summary: Impressive
Review: Impressive This is an impressive,impressionable book that deals with a subject that for many had no idea ever existed. 'Munchausen by Proxy', a type of child abuse, as real as and as cruel as any child abuse I have ever read about. The book does well to make the reader understand what this author has lived through. It is courageous and inspirational like that of 'Nightmares Echo',with pieces of 'A child Called it', the devastational side of abuse written within it's pages. It ranks right up there with the two books mentioned and I consider it a must read book, and a well written memoir.
Rating: 
Summary: Horrified That This Really Happened
Review: Julie Gregory is alive. Thank God. It is a miracle she lived through twenty years of starvation, malnutrition, drugging, and severe physical, emotional, and spiritual abuse. Gregory is a woman I would love to hear give a talk someday, and meet. She is one of the bravest people I have ever heard of.
Her mother had Munchausen by Proxy - the insane desire for attention from the medical community that leads mothers to hurt their children and make them ill. Gregory's mother's desire to spend time with doctors and hospitals, was so strong, that she adopted many foster children and made them sick, too.
Why did no one stop this monster? And the more you read, the more you realize, her mother is a monster. Julie tried to tell a few people. Either they did not believe her, or when she finally got help, she panicked and retracted. This was how great the woman's hold was on her. As an adult, she is shattered and feels incomplete.
Sickened makes you feel sick. It is a very depressing book, but a story that needs to be told. Every doctor, every nurse, every teacher should read this book. I hope it has great reverberations through the medical community.
Rating:
Summary: Darkness Visible
Review: Julie Gregory's remarkable memoir is an illustration that child abuse rather than some rare occurence goes on under our noses all the time. Like "A Child Called It" or "The Bark of the Dogwood," we're given glimpses into the horrific lives that some have led. While Julie lived with her family in a rural setting, her mother's behavior was observed by family practitioners, surgeons, hospital staff, teachers and social workers. All of them were manipulated by this sick woman who was uneducated but overzealous religion-wise and cunning. She played the system like an out of tune violin and the result was that the child suffered greatly. Harrowing and disturbing to the point of nausea, SICKENED will take its place along the other memoirs of child abuse, possibly at the top. Also recommended: BARK OF THE DOGWOOD and A CHILD CALLED IT
Rating:
Summary: Absolutely Inspirational
Review:
Through the horrowing details of the painful childhood, of going without food, and hustled from one Doctor to another....you would think that this child would have climbed in to an inner shell and never stepped back out to the light of day. Instead, what you find is inspiration. A child that realizes what is happening and takes the steps slowly to push away from the painful past and start her life anew. Amazing book.
Also recommended: Nightmares Echo, Paper Life
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointed
Review: Not in the story just the way it was written. I'm against any kind of child abuse & although it's very sad what happened to Julie, and you get some insight into what she went through, you don't really get involved in the story. Perhaps I was expecting more, having just read a superbly written book (Out of the Dark by LC & RR), but I think Julie should seriously consider changing editors. Good story - bad writing.
Rating:
Summary: Great Book
Review: I am shocked by the people who have reviewed this book and said that it was "boring" or the abuse wasn't very intense. Regardless,I picked this book up and couldn't put it down. It was an intriguing story of one girl's struggle to find her own identity and get out from the web of abuse and lies she had grown up with.
|
