Review of 'Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key (Joey Pigza #1)' on 'Storygraph'
5 stars
This was a ride. I don't know how accurate it is, but it did give me more empathy for people on the higher end of the hyperactivity spectrum, especially kids.
Joey lives with his grandmom at first, who also has hyperactivity of some form, but she's abusive sometimes.
His mom comes home and rescues him and gets rid of the grandmom. But near the end, we get more details of the abuse he went through, and it's infinitely harder to read than the beginning.
His mom is amazing and really strong. She stops chasing after her no-good husband (who also has some form of hyperactivity and grew up with the grandmom i.e. his mom, so I honestly don't know if it's all his fault or not) to come back to raise the child who missed her so much. She's very strong and is very patient. She does cry, but she's …
This was a ride. I don't know how accurate it is, but it did give me more empathy for people on the higher end of the hyperactivity spectrum, especially kids.
Joey lives with his grandmom at first, who also has hyperactivity of some form, but she's abusive sometimes.
His mom comes home and rescues him and gets rid of the grandmom. But near the end, we get more details of the abuse he went through, and it's infinitely harder to read than the beginning.
His mom is amazing and really strong. She stops chasing after her no-good husband (who also has some form of hyperactivity and grew up with the grandmom i.e. his mom, so I honestly don't know if it's all his fault or not) to come back to raise the child who missed her so much. She's very strong and is very patient. She does cry, but she's never bad to Joey iirc. The relationship between Joey and his mom is amazing and beautiful, and she's amazing. Never once is her single parenthood brought up, and the special education people and school staff are actually super nice.
I don't remember now but during one of the later chapters when things are looking up I actually smiled while reading at the dining table :)
At some point, he gets put into special education school and there's a few brief mentions of the kids there who have physical and/or mental disabilities, and he even makes friends (or at least 1) and it's sweet.
