A reader in northern Ontario kindly added this review to Goodreads.com and to Amazon.ca – I’m very grateful!

 

Victoria Bajer, Barrie, ON

Rag Dolls and Rage is a story about childhood trauma, loss of innocence, and the strength to overcome even the most terrible of horrors. Throughout the book, Sheila, poignantly details her memories from childhood, creating scenes that vividly come to life in my head.

So much so, that it sometimes made its way into my thoughts as I went to sleep. The contrast between life on the seaside of Northingthorpe and the house in Manchester was vividly illustrated. As the reader, I myself yearned to go back to the ivy-covered house with the green wooden porch.

The book is painfully honest and reveals what many children tragically go through in a world where their fate is determined by the adults in their life. Sheila’s memoir is immensely brave as instead of fleeing from her past, she faces it and becomes the hero of her own story. Her story is one of human willpower as, through therapy and self-acceptance, Sheila conquered the demons of her past. I recommend this book to everyone as it really touched me and left me feeling very uplifted by the end. It taught me that every person can take control of their own destiny and overcome even the most monstrous stones that life sometimes throws at us. As “when life throws stones on you, you pick them up and learn to use them to build the strongest, firmest foundation that no one could ever destroy.”