Book: My Story

	Author:	Dave Pelzer
	Genre:	Nonfiction, Biography
	Publisher:	Orion
	Year Published:	August 31, 2002

"My Story" is a thick book that puts together three of Pelzer's bestsellers - "A Child Called It", "The Lost Boy", and "A Man Called Dave". It's the true story of the child abuse the author endured under his mother and how he overcame this to eventually "break the chain" of violence that started with his grandmother.

When I saw the book "A Child Called It", the title caught my attention. Reading the summary got me interested in the story - what kind of parent would treat her child like rubbish and call him "It"? I didn't buy the book though, as much as I wanted to read it, I thought it was too expensive. Months later I would find other books by the same author, apparently continuing the story. Much later, I would come across, by chance, a paperback combining the three biographical books into one volume called "My Story". I bought it at once.

I would find out that Dave had four other brothers and that their mother is an alcoholic. The mother decided to pick on Dave for unexplained reasons and vented out all her frustrations on the child. The odd thing was - the other brothers weren't given the same treatment. Dave did manage to break away from his mother, began learning to adjust to a different life in foster homes, learned to accept the abuse as part of his past, and he is now a sought after speaker apart from a known author of self help books. What happened to his brothers? Little is told of them - although we gather that when Dave left the house, another brother took his place and endured the abuse Dave was subjected to.

It is a beautiful story, but not one I would read again anytime in the near future as it would leave me with heavy emotions. After a few years or so, then maybe I can read it again, when I have forgotten how painful the story is.