Title: Shut Up! Your Words Are Killing Me
Author: Patricia L. Cleare
Publisher: Outskirts Press, Inc.
ASIN: B097TXK8NG
Pages: 97
Genre: Religion & Spirituality
Reviewed by: Christina Avina
Pacific Book Review
There are many moments in any given person’s life that often lead to an endless cycle. What that cycle is and what it looks like is determined by the individual and the circumstances they find themselves in. Finding a means of escaping that cycle is one of life’s many trials, and for many of those people enduring that kind of cycle, the means of escape remains in their faith or belief system.
A major cycle which sadly continues to this day is abuse, and in author Patricia L. Cleare’s Shut Up! Your Words Are Killing Me, the author demonstrates the cycle so many young women find themselves in. The book follows a young woman who not only endured verbal and mental abuse from her mother as a child, but continues in an abusive relationship with her husband both verbally and physically. As the cycle of violence grows, the young woman must contend with the voice of her mother telling her abusive men are better than no men. Soon however signs begin to show her staying on the path she’s on will only lead to destruction, and through her faith must find a way of escape.
Shocking and heartbreaking are just the tip of the iceberg for this compelling novel. The author expertly weaves through the emotional gauntlet the protagonist must endure, infusing some of her own personal experiences into a tragic situation that so many women have had to go through in their lives. The descriptive nature of the events plays out like an independent film in the reader’s mind, and the first-person narrative allows for an honest stream of consciousness from the protagonist to give readers more insight into the mental and psychological impact abuse has on people as well.
For anyone who has had to endure such tragic events or circumstances, both in childhood and adulthood, or for anyone who knows someone or has often wanted to help those who are enduring an endless cycle of abuse and violence and is looking for hope and inspiration in finding a means of ending that cycle, this book will speak to them. The author honestly brings the highs and lows of this experience to the forefront, confronting the pain and chilling nature of abusers and those who endure them. For many the theme of faith and religion becoming a helping hand in that struggle will connect with readers as well.
