"There was a fine line between being looked after 

and being monitored, I suspected"

Stacey Jameson p115

Mimi Thebo (2004) Hit the Road, Jack. London, Harper Collins 978-0-00-714278-1

 

A young adult fiction book about a teenage boy feeling a misfit at a school and beginning to clash with his mother, wondering if finding his father will help him find himself.

[Trigger Warning: Domestic Violence]

[Spoiler alert]

Jack is a young teenage boy who finds letters from his father to his mother. He has only hazy memories of his father but has heard that he is now living on the streets. He blames his mother for rejecting his father and sets out to find him.

Breaking all the rules he sneaks out after bedtime and meets a cast of interesting characters who are drawn into his search, risking their own safety in doing so.

In finding his drug addicted and homeless father, he recovers memories of the physical abuse his father subjected his mother to – and as a small child he witnessed 

His search reaches a dramatic and dangerous end but cements his friendship with the people who he has met and enables him to find “his tribe”.

This is really heart-warming tale and deals with the recovered memories of the abuse in a way that would be appropriate for a young teenager to read without diminishing the horrific nature of the abuse.

Stacey Jameson (2019) Why Don’t You Just Leave Him? A True Story of Domestic Violence Self Published 978-1-7945-3217-5

 

This is a self-published book by the survivor of an extremely violent abusive marriage. She writes honestly about her account of how she became compliant and accepting as a result of her mother’s abuse of her as a child and how this fed in to her acceptance of a violent relationship and, despite getting up the courage to leave, returns on a number of occasions.

[Trigger Warning: Domestic Violence]

[Spoiler alert]

The story is told by Stacey who details the development of herself as a child emotionally abused by her mother and how this prepared her for accepting a partner and then husband who was abusive.

Stacey meets her future husband as a teenager and goes on to live with him, have a child with him, marry him and have a further child while experiencing a very physically violent and controlling relationship. She is subjected to financial, sexual, physical, emotional and mental abuse. Finally for the sake of her children she leaves and goes to a refuge. Like many survivors she returns to her husband a number of times before she finally finds the strength to leave for good.

The book is an honest and raw account by a very courageous woman.