My Abandonment Book

Let me start with the following: I am so freaking confused by this book.

When I read the back of the book, I knew it was about a father and his 13 year old kid and they're trucking around all of Portland and living in the woods and all that. That much is true. And before I attempted to really get into the book I did some research on here and found that mostly it was well liked, and the ones that weren't well liked, well, didn't give enough reason for me to be completely turned off.

My issues aren't that it's not well written. It's written just fine. I guess my issue is that it's very bland -- "I went and did this. And then I did this. And then I turned the corner, making sure I was away from Father." It's very dry. I never get into the mind of this character (the book is through the daughter's perspective), I never understand how she is feeling or what is going on with her psyche. I mean this guy is basically shlepping her around these random places and you have no idea where they're going or what she REALLY thinks of it. And that just bugs me.

What also bugs me is the fact that the father is a bit on the creeper side. He continuously calls his daughter "my heart" which…just freaks me out. I don't know, it rubs me the wrong way. I was worried that at any moment it was going to get incestuous because the relationship between these two individuals is just…not healthy. I get why she might be clingy to her father seeing as, I don't know, she's been living like a nomad for about four years of her formative life in the woods, but the way her father brushes her hair and says all these things to her sounds like he's in love with her and not caring for her in a father to daughter relationship.

Another thing that really bugs me is the fact that the father is clearly not right in the head, and I don't ever think it is established how un-right in the head he is. It's just one big ball of confusing mass -- he keeps saying they're being watched, and eventually his excuses of move move move get so grating and annoying that every time he talks about "them being watched" I literally react like this:



Maybe I'm being too harsh, but do you know when you finally figure shit out? Like, in the last twenty pages. That's frustrating as hell. While I kept reading it because I was nervous that something awful was going to happen to the girl, the ending is just…ridiculous. There are so many questions I want to ask and I want to understand but I can't because the book never actually answers anything.

I don't know. I just feel like this book was 200 pages of nothing. I really didn't understand anything that was going on. This girl had someone who may have been her father? May not have been her father? I'm just sitting here confused. I feel robbed. I want those hours back, and I want them back now.