And you thought you'd had a tough life! (Lost Boy, The - Dave Pelzer)

Member Name: Biffa

Product:	Lost Boy, The - Dave Pelzer
Date:	06/05/01 (53 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: See opinion

Disadvantages: See opinion

I'd read loads of opinions about this book on dooyoo before I decided to take the plunge and order it from BOL with my ipoints. I knew from the opinions what the book was about and how it affected people who read it, and thought "Ok, we'll see if it's what people say it is"

The book is a horror story that you won't belive until you read the book. If you thought your childhood was a waste of time, that you'd been badly treated by your parents etc read this book and then you'll realise how lucky you really are.

The book is about a boy called Dave Pelzer. He has the perfect home life - loving parents, brothers and everything a child could wish for. Things start to change when his mother starts to hit the bottle, and soon Dave is living a nightmare.

He is forced to live in the garage in an old Army cot and rags for blankets. His clothes are tattered and full of holes. But that's the good part. Pretty soon, things get worse - he is denied the luxury of food - getting the scraps from his brothers cereal bowls but only if he has done all his chores in the time alloted by his mother. He has to do the dishes in scalding hot water amongst other things.

He starts to steal food from lunchboxes at school so that he can eat. His mother makes him vomit when he gets home so she can see if he has had any food. At one point, he steals frozen hot dogs from the school canteen. When he gets home, he mother forces him to be sick and to eat it again. She gives him soiled nappies from his baby brother and rubs them in his face, screaming at him to eat it.

Disturbed yet? She stabs him and refuses to take him to hospital - instead he has to get on with his chores. His father does nothing - although his son has been stabbed and bleeding all over the place, he tells him to go and do the dishes before his mother gets really mad!

She beats him on a regular basis, then locks him in the bathr
oom with a bucket of ammonia, until he is throwing up blood. She makes him drink a spoonful when he asks for food. At one point, he goes for ten days without food. Ten days!!

You HAVE to read this book. If you're not a great reader, you still have to read it. I read the book in less than 3 hours because I had to find out how he got away from it.

The most amazing thing about this story is that it was the 3rd worst case of child abuse in the state of California. The THIRD worst in one state - not the entire country.

You'll be in tears when you read about what this poor child went through.

Summary: