I realise that rating systems necessarily have to be simple to be useful, but it does feel awkward giving this three stars, knowing that, on Goodreads, three stars means "I liked it". I didn't like it. It's a memoir of child abuse. There is nothing likeable about what Pelzer describes. His parents - the both of them - are monsters. I'd rather not give them more attention than that. Keeping focus on the writing: Pelzer's prose is vivid and affecting. Memoirs, more than autobiographies, are meant to evoke feeling and that's what this does. I'm not entirely sure the structure of it worked for me, however. Putting the escape at the beginning does allow you to read through the rest with some sense of reassurance, but it also means the book is largely grim and ends grim. I understand this is the first in a series, but I've never appreciated cliffhangers and still don't, really. Had it ended with Pelzer's teachers helping to free him from the abuse the whole sweep of narrative would have married better with the emotional journey of the memoir, I think.