Also, when she’s had so many traumas in such a short period of time, how is she supposed to process any one thing? Her daughter was stolen from her, she has no idea what happened to her husband or, for much of the book, her mother, she’s seem horrific violence and her entire life and identity have been taken from her?…

Gah, two comments starting with the exact same sentences, and it’s too late to edit them.

I so agree on your first point. From her point of view, all she saw was a power struggle between two parties who didn’t care a thing about her.

My takeaway from her book was, “People don’t believe this, but I swear my mom really was that stupid,” and I’m inclined to believe her. It didn’t seem like she was fame and money hungry, exactly, just naive and under-protective. Now we would all know not to send a girl that age to be alone with a strange man for a…

My takeaway from reading her book was that she makes concessions for no one. She knows exactly what people like your mother think of her and her mother, and I don’t think she has any interest in appeasing them. Whatever you or I think of what she wants now, I think she really did arrive there organically.

Having read her book, she is an extremely independent thinker, and she knows exactly who’s on her side and who’s not. She doesn’t exactly feel solidarity with the celebrities who signed the petition a few years ago, even though she wants the same thing as them. And, at least at the time she wrote the book, she didn’t…

I was thinking the same thing! Finally someone didn’t feel the need to make her look as dowdy as possible.

I would never have told some stranger they could come hang out at my house for a price in the first place. If I did, I’d be putting compromising my safety and putting myself in a legally dicey situation. It would also be a very strange and sketchy thing to do. So I don’t engage in such transactions, totally…

It’s a business. It’s really not like selling tickets for a party at your house.

I feel exactly the same way! Whenever I see Jessica Lang, I see the character she’s playing. When I see Susan Sarandon, I see Susan Sarandon.

I know. She’s a great actress. Aunt Viv would never.

Our justice system is overly harsh and punitive. It needs to change. But given the context of our vile racial history and the gross inequality of the prison population in general, that change does not start with going easier on white people who committed hate crimes.

I have a friend who always says, “If you’re worried about safety, wear a seatbelt.” I know it’s true, but a) Duh, I always have my kids wear their seatbelts, and b) Yes, one of my kids dying in an accident is more likely, and it would be horrific. But there’s something about human malice that’s especially terrifying.

Uh, I think you can. Just ask Trump. In fact, he wrote off just about everyone. For some reason, they didn’t respond in kind.

This is the best commentary I’ve seen all day.

Yeah, I can’t speak to the legal piece of it, but I think morally she has a great case. But if I were her, I’d have thought long and hard about whether I wanted to imply to my children that I wished they had never been born. OTOH, she probably did think long and hard about it, and concluded that this was the right…

Maybe they don’t almost always get caught? We have no idea how often they cover something up and get away with it. That said, they could have actually made themselves look good if they’d reported it as soon as they knew.

Even if I were to accept the belief all the adults here obviously hold - that boys matter and girls do not - this isn’t best for the boys either! If mom is so dedicated to them having a relationship with their father, she could have facilitated one with him in prison*, where he belongs. It would have been hard, but if…

I think the idea is, if you’re a parent your kids are really yours to do with what you want. Unless a child ends up dead, the legal system tends to be very lenient with all kinds of child abuse. I’ve looked at can’t find the statistic, but after the ‘90s-era hysteria about child crime, children who committed…

I felt the same way. In fact, his abusive behavior often knocks the wind out of me for just a second. I can shake it off (although even that is more like denial than really moving past it), because it’s not directed at me and I don’t know him, but to actually be targeted by him....I can’t imagine.