I had put off reading this memoir for many years as I was aware the content would be brutal. Reading this book is more a rollercoaster of emotions. There are good times but in all of those times I was on the edge of my seat waiting for the domestic abuse to begin again. Andrea Ashworth is the eldest daughter of three. Her and her middle sister share the same father, who died when she was young and had Maltese-Italian heritage, giving them both dark skin. Her mother was still young and had a couple of relationships, both with violent men. Andrea takes on a protective role both for her sisters and her mother. The family often has very little money. The family house is sold to take them to Canada for a new life but the money soon disappears and they return after a couple of years with little. Now relying on temporary housing, the family occasionally are living all crammed in the spare room of a relative or friend. Andrea proves to be a bright student and she escapes through reading, although this is often seen as threatening by her step-fathers. She tells about buying the cheapest items in KwikSave, wearing second hand clothes, making do and mending things and, apart from the trip to Canada, a claustrophobic life where no one goes far. At school and on the streets there is bullying and racism. One step father is a criminal and she describes prison visiting. Andrea Ashworth tells her story as a child, rather than trying to analyse what is happening and why. The reader is held by the hand through the book so that you can feel Andrea's concern for her mother when she was depressed, understands why Andrea decides to stay at home to care for her mother and miss school and grasps why the family don't even consider saving when they are in the money but enjoy the thrill of spending. What makes the book enjoyable is knowing that Andrea Ashworth gets out and away to Oxford. ( )

A memoir about a young girl’s difficult childhood surrounded by domestic violence. Her intelligence and love of books eventually led to her leaving her hometown of Manchester, going to Oxford University and then becoming an academic. This is a very intense book and, although it tells a story that is at times sad, it’s interesting and absorbing. I read it when I was eighteen and I remember it made an impact on me then because of the author’s love of reading and the way she had achieved so much despite her background. [2011]

I tore through this book like a "house on fire." It's that good. The writing is top notch, but the subject, a childhood spent in and around the housing projects of Manchester, England (with a couple years spent in Canada), rife with abuse and domestic violence is simply wrenching to read. The author's mom could really pick 'em. Ashworth remembers little about her real father, who died suspiciously, drowned in a shallow ditch, which make you wonder if he, like the two violently abusive and loutish stepfathers who followed him, was also a drinker. I will guiltily admit that I read Ashworth's account with a kind of horrified fascination. Her childhood was simply so unrelentingly awful that you wonder how she possibly survived. And yet she did. In one particularly telling passage she tells of how she and her two younger sisters were always glad to see the Jehovah's Witnesses come knocking, because it meant her stepfather would behave himself for a time. The three girls guiltily treasured the miniature Bibles the Witnesses left behind and even memorized many chapters and verses "as if we were doing homework for God." They soon tired of this however, as the fights and abuse continued. "Since God never seemed to come up with the goods, we eventually found ourselves concentrating less on prayers and more on high marks at school." And education, as it turned out was Ashworth's salvation, the wings that lifted her out of her hellish life and into the halls of Academe at Oxford. This is not really an uplifting tale, until you recognize that the author and her sisters did finally escape the vicious cycle of their rotten home life and establish productive and successful lives of their own. While not a happy story, Ashworth's skill makes it an absolutely riveting one. Perhaps one of the most vivid accounts of family violence and codependency I have ever encountered. ( )

A good read although a little long for me as a memoir. I liked it most because I knew the songs etc as I grew up at the same time as the author. The blurb on the back is a little excessive as the Scotsman uses `brilliant' 4 times, not quite that good a book for me!

Her life has made her the person she is now. I don't envy her having gone from pillar to post as a child and I can't imagine what it must've been like living with an abusive father and step-father feeling useless to help her mother. However, she had the strength to get out when she could and manage it with little distress to her family. Very well written but it dipped half way through for me and I was looking forward to being on the home straight.

I could imagine all of the `characters' which is a sign of a good writer and I would possibly read more by this author. I found the poverty part of her life much more interesting as I work with children from backgrounds such as this. Parts of her life are shocking if you haven't been brought up like this but Andrea tells it in such a way that the shock wears of and it becomes the norm, which is dreadful to feel like that as a person.

A book I've had for a while and one I'm very pleased to have read. I will recommend it to others. ( )

Although I enjoyed this book, I was not quite so enamoured with it as others who have reviewed the book.
It lacked a page-turning quality, and the continuity was a little wishy-washy, seeming to try and stuff years worth of information into the last few pages of the book, where it times her descriptive writing seemed lengthy and unnessary.
Having said that, the content of the book does make up for the unpracticed writing, as with many book of this genre, whose authors have been prompted to write a book more out of their life experiences than a deep desire to write. ( )