This is well written book that quickly engages the reader. It wants desperately to be a revealing and heartwarming story, and a shallow read would confirm that. But there are several problematic elements to this book that stop me from giving it a glowing review.

The first is that I can't imagine that this book was a positive experience for the author's daughter. To be identified publicly as having RAD, to have minute details of all the behavioral issues she experienced, to report frankly on all the nasty heat-of-the-moment parents said about the child -- how hurtful must that be to her? I cannot imagine publishing such a thing when my child was still a child, still young enough to be hurt by it.

I think this is because the author is quite self-absorbed and the book is so much about her and her struggles that you eventually start to wonder about the daughter. One might argue memoirs are inherently self-absorbed, so you can give it a pass, but taken with the other point, I was concerned. Especially considering the language about "rescue" and savior complex she develops.

I found the author's take on RAD was a little odd and I hope not indicative of other parents. She does not take her daughter to an expert and does not undertake a recommended therapy. She and her husband kind of invent their own thing. They seem to think it works, but the complete lack of psychiatrist's intervention -- especially when she is seeing a counselor about her own fraught relationship with her mother -- was strange and I hope not something others will adopt upon reading the book.

Similarly, I was frightened by the brief but fawning discussion of wilderness campus for troubled children. That unregulated industry is extremely harmful to children and the fact that this is well documented goes unremarked here. ( )

My only concerns are that she waits to research RAD and then does not consult a professional. Otherwise, very readable. ( )