Gemma by Meg Tilly
Review by Jessa Larsen
Gemma is the classic misfit. She comes from a broken home and gets by in school due to the fact that she’s known to throw a good punch if pushed too far. For the most part, Gemma finds it easiest to slide through life by being as invisible as possible. You see, Gemma has a dark secret that nobody must ever know about. She has something about her that invites her mother’s boyfriend to her bed every night. She can’t tell anyone or she’ll be in very big trouble. So it’s best if she stays invisible. That way nobody will ever ask any questions and risk hearing her dark secrets.
“Gemma” is the telling of a dark story that seems all too familiar these days. It tells the tale of a twelve year old girl who lives her life being physically and sexually abused. Her mother doesn’t stick around long enough at one time to care and mom’s boyfriend is around all too often for nightly visits to her bed. The tale turns even darker when her abuser takes it one step further and pimps her out. The pimp’n’ho lifestyle doesn’t last too long due to an even more unfortunate kidnapping. Who knows when the pain will end or if it will ever end well at all for poor Gemma.
This book seemed to be written in two parts. The first half of the book switches between the narrative of Gemma and the narrative of her abuser and kidnapper. This chronicles the tale of her abusive family at home as well as her kidnapping and what happens to her until eventually they’re found out and she’s taken into state custody. The second half of the book gives us the story of what happens to her kidnapper after his arrest as well as what happens to the victim. The second half isn’t as well written and rather slow, but I much preferred it to the first half. The first half is have interesting psychological insight and half what I would call erotica for pedophiles. I’ve read various books with this type of situation and they never went into as much detail. I had to skim a lot of the first half as it was disgustingly graphic. I have nothing against a good erotica, but when dealing with abusive pedophiles, I definitely don’t want the gritty details. The second half gets rid of the erotica, but gets a bit too slow and boring for my taste. I did enjoy the continued psychological insight of the abuser’s point of view and what he thought was going to happen to his life.
I would never recommend this book to anyone especially if you have any sore spots regarding traumatic abuse. I continually had to put the book down and walk away for a while due to the nature of its content. Various reviews from other readers and publishers stated that it was a great balance between abuse and a happy ending, but I would very much agree. I would never read this book again nor am I interested in reading anything else by this author.
Originally posted on www.luxuryreading.com
Tags: gemma, jessa, larsen, luxury raeding, meg tilly