While somewhat uneven, I found this story about a traumatized married woman forced to take care of her mother responsible for her trauma, quite compelling. The tumultuous relationship between mother and daughter was nuanced and bold in its honesty. There is a deep acknowledgement of emotions altering memory, even as it contextualizes a memory from both perspectives such that the casual damage loved ones inflict on one another is depicted as mortal wounds that continue a generational cycle.

The dynamics found in the family are immortalized and, I think, fairly well known and felt in far more than people like to admit. Patterning happens. Whether we want to or not. It is ingrained in our psyche, and as much as we do not want to become our parents. Nor do we want to even look at our dark thoughts. The absolute worst of us.

Putting it on the page and coupling to the cycle where people we characterize as villainous in our lives end up being the template we all too often slip into. It’s a brilliant message, well executed. Intentionally uncomfortable and at once humanizing and condemnable. I found this impossible not to reflect upon while consuming it. No wonder, then, that the reaction is so polarizing.