PositiveThe New York Times Book Review...at once fascinating, mystifying and distressing ... The narrative is largely written from within Julien’s claustrophobic existence. There is little room for her later self — the adult who becomes a psychotherapist with an expertise in psychological control — to interlace observations about her parents’ barbaric character or to explore the bewildering spirals of manipulation. This may be a stylistic choice — it holds the reader inside the trauma — but it also keeps the story within the narrowest of confines when, at times, I wished it would expand. Without giving away the ending, when this world begins to crack — letting in enough light for Julien to squint and see beyond — the story takes on the energy of a thriller, building on the reader’s hectic desire for her escape. Didier made it his senseless mission to build his daughter into a superhuman, but to her credit, she shatters this fantasy to pieces by remaining human.
