That book made me sad and I cried when I read it the first time and had to put the book down about five times. Those were only few of the times I had real empathy and felt something. I couldn't imagine how a mother could be that sick and so cruel to her child when she should be loving him and nurturing him. I hated her even though I knew she had problems and was emotionally unstable and I thought the father was a coward because he enabled the abuse. I even wanted to send her a nasty letter but I didn't know her address. But she's dead anyway.