Hardcover, 255 pages
Published June 1, 2018 by Amazon Crossing.
Great read about a little girl surviving and struggling with a childhood in the slums of Brazil and eventually ending up adopted by a family in Sweden. She's torn between two lives, two families, two home countries. Beautifully written memoir.
This is a heartbreaking story of a child living in extreme poverty on the streets in Brazil. The things that happen to her are horrific including witnessing the murder of her best friend by the police, seeing numerous rapes, and killing another child in a fight over food. Because this all happened as a child she didn't clearly know or remember the reasons why they lived like they did. All she knew was that her mother loved her and her little brother but that there were also times when she wasn't around. The children were taken to an orphanage where they were eventually not allowed to have contact with their mother and then were adopted by a couple from Sweden. Nothing that was going on was explained to her. As an adult she decides to go back to Brazil to try to find her mother and to find out what …
This is a heartbreaking story of a child living in extreme poverty on the streets in Brazil. The things that happen to her are horrific including witnessing the murder of her best friend by the police, seeing numerous rapes, and killing another child in a fight over food. Because this all happened as a child she didn't clearly know or remember the reasons why they lived like they did. All she knew was that her mother loved her and her little brother but that there were also times when she wasn't around. The children were taken to an orphanage where they were eventually not allowed to have contact with their mother and then were adopted by a couple from Sweden. Nothing that was going on was explained to her. As an adult she decides to go back to Brazil to try to find her mother and to find out what really happened to make sense of her childhood memories. She examines the disconnect she feels about being grateful for her good life in Sweden that wouldn't have happened if she wasn't forcibly taken from her mother but also being angry about being separated from the person who loved her. The book is very simply written or translated. That makes it a very stark read. It is very sad but I think it is necessary to know what is going on in the poorest parts of society. Once again in reading this book I was struck by how often male sexual violence towards women and children is considered to be an everyday thing. I hate knowing that there are women who have to submit to being raped because they are told that it is her or her child. Books like this just make me want to have a moratorium on men for a while.This review was originally posted on Based On A True Story
