Alexandra 'Cat' Rucker's father is dying and her mother just committed suicide. So she is forced to come back home to Wilton, Ohio, the hometown she ran away from ten years ago because of physical and sexual abuse from 'the Hand'. A fierce and sharp portrayal of a broken woman's struggle to finally face the reality of dark family secrets and past loves at the same time that she tries to deal with her inner demons and discover stunning new revelations about her family.
'Two days after my father had a massive stroke my mother shot herself in the head. Her suicide was a shock-- not the fact that she killed herself but the way in which she did it. It was odd that my mother chose such a violent end to her own violent life.'(opening lines)
'I wish I could ask her what she saw before she pulled the trigger. I don't need her to say she saw me. I want to know she saw something. That she felt something. And that it felt like freedom. And then, if I could, I would ask her what that felt like.'(4)
'Thanks,' I said. Cat is my nickname. It's short for alley Cat. My real name is Alexandra but my family used to call me Ally. Then my sister, Wendy, called me Alley Cat, and then just Cat. After a while, I was known in Wilton as Cat.'(5)
February 23rd.
Cat,
He isn't who you think he is.
Mom xxxooo
... I counted the words including the hugs and kisses. Ten, minus the date-- one for every year I had been gone.'(13)
'I battled my body on a daily basis. Most days it won, and I crawled back to wherever I came from-- the bed, the floor. Today I rallied the troops: I asked the legs to stand, the head to focus, and the heart to stay hidden.'(25)
'I counted twelve Bundt cakes. This was part of Wilton tradition: a Bundt cake for a death, a blanket for a birth, a casserole for a heart attack.'(30)
'My extracurricular activity was avoiding Dad at all costs. One didn't go out for this sport as much as get drafted for it. Dad didn't do much in the way of work... He was good with his hands. Whatever he touched bended to his will: crops grew, dead machines turned over, skin bruised.'(36)
'With no one to share the stories with, I studied the books more closely and secretly began drawing and writing my own comic, called "Kat's Eye." It was the story of a girl named Kitty Kat who was banished from her hometown of 'Niceville" (I saw that town on a map of Florida once) by her nemesis, "the Hand." The stories were about Kitty Kat's attempts to fight the Hand (and his fellow evildoers, "the Monster" and "the Hard Heart") and get back to Niceville.(45)
'The sound of the phone ringing reverberated inside my head. I shot up in bed and looked frantically around the strange room. Amnesia was a by-product of the black edge of sleep I drank myself into most nights.'(64)
'This was why I didn't tell people. They never believed me. Deep down they wanted to think that it wasn't awful as it seemed. Instead of feeling bad for me, they'd rather act like I was doing something to deserve the treatment.'(75)
'I waited and hoped she would find me and take us away. I wanted her to be willing to lose another finger for me. I wanted her to be someone else. "We all have our crosses to bear," was her answer the last time I tried to tell her what was happening.'(90)
'I went back to the swing and pushed myself. The chains creaked as he studied me. His eyes took in every outward feature: my hair, eyes, hands, lips. Maybe if he looked long enough he could see right through to the heart of me. And in seeing that dark core, would he understand or would he run away?'(97)
'In his review of me, I felt what he saw, the way the parts of me made a body, a living, breathing equation that had been ravaged but could also be adored. And while I had vowed to never look my father in the face when he was touching me, I could not look away from Addison as his eyes seemed to reconstruct me into something different. '(106)
'So what is walking the plank?' Addison asked the next morning as I searched the room for my mother's pearls.'(120)
'At the far end of our property over by Rucker's Creek, there's a crack where the land splits. The ravine is deep and rocky and goes for about a mile. There's a rope bridge that spans the crack that's been there my whole life. My dad and your dad built it before my parents were married. You can climb it and get to this sweet patch of wood and grass and a small hunting shack.'(121)
'You can be lonelier with someone else than by yourself. That kind of love, that life she made, destroyed everything. Being alone never hurt anybody.'(150)
'The hardest part of leaving isn't the looking back; it isn't the loss you feel for a place or people; it's the fear that what you intended to leave isn't ever going to go, and that what you really want, you're never going to get.'(184)
'It's not the answer to your problems you are looking for, it's the courage to face them.'(219)
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2010 Ballantine Books Trade Paperback Edition
225 pages
Book won
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Personal note: My first book giveaway win courtesy of Tea Time with Marce.
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