Reviews for Home Before Dark: A Family Portrait of Cancer and Healing

The average rating for Home Before Dark: A Family Portrait of Cancer and Healing based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2018-10-21 00:00:00 Vijeshwariee Yoganathan I was so excited when I saw this book on the shelf. I was badly bullied in school. I had a very similar background to Jodee. I am about her age, and at the time, school administrators ignored bullying or tried to blame the victim. My parents also moved me from school to school but that only made matters worse. I was also physically and mentally abused. I was also socially isolated in schools for most of my growing up. I REALLY wanted to like this book. I However, Jodee turned out to be one of the least sympathetic victims I've ever read about. While she whined and complained about how much people hated her, she was EXTREMELY critical of others. She is unapologetic in describing some of her fellow unpopular collegues in the most unflattering ugly ways. I found her descriptions of students with disabilities to be condescending and insulting. Because I was a victim of serious bullying growing up, I don't want to say that one should blame the victim.. but as an adult, I can see where my poor social skills and self absorption led to my being a target for bullies. I'm not saying that it justified their actions, but my actions did have an effect on people around me. Jodee seems to have had no revelations as an adult. She tells the story through the eyes of a hurt 12 year old. I saw no healing or self realization at all. And I was disappointed by the ending. She sounded like a desperate little kid imagining her high school reuinion. "Woo. I am so important and I know all these celebrities... PLEASE LOVE ME, CHEERLEADERS!!" And the cheerleaders said "OK! WE LOVE YOU JODEE!!" The end. Worst. Book. Ever.

Review # 2 was written on 2018-02-04 00:00:00 Glen Linch This is supposed to be a true story about the author's life, and how she was bullied all through school. As an adult she became a famous publicist and has gone on to lecture about bullying. The book started off ok but then became harder to believe; eventually it didn't seem to ring true at all. The author states how she is traumatized and the book was described on the jacket as, "...harrowing tale of survival against insurmountable odds." but the story wasn't like that at all. It seemed that Ms. Blanco was fairly popular a lot of the time and she was only bullied when she made the other, popular kids angry. According to her, she did this by standing up for others who were being abused and refusing to go along with the crowd when they were doing things that were wrong. Apparently everyone else in the schools, (she moved to a different school to get away), was controlled by peer pressure and went along with whatever the "in crowd" demanded--only Jodi stood against them. She made comments stating things like: it was her strength that made the other kids hate her,and her actions may make her a great adult but they weren't helping her now, at school. Not only was she the only student to always do the right thing, but no teacher backed her up, not even the principal. At one point she indicated that the teachers were picking on her for standing up to another teacher who was cruel to a student. Her parents loved her but kept telling her to ignore the bullies saying that they would leave her alone. She also claimed that her parents at first thought that she was the problem so they took her to a psychiatrist...he didn't believe her either. Ms. Blanco said that the doctor told her to learn to get along and then medicated her. This book did not seem true to me at all and by half-way through I couldn't wait to be at the end. I almost stopped reading it but I hate doing that and I wanted to see how it ended. It wasn't very interesting because I found it so hard to believe. By the time I was done, I felt like I was ready to bully the author! She came across as a wholier- then-thou, pompous girl. I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone and the author never did explain how to deal with the serious problem of bullying.