Suffer the Children (A Gardiner and Renner Novel)
By: Lisa Black
Rating: 4 of 5
This was a difficult yet ultimately rewarding novel to read. The book is focused on children who have been dramatically abused. There is so much information and science behind what has occurred and what one can expect from these children, that it takes a good portion of the book to describe.
The author has used characters to give this information to the reader. In some cases, it becomes more of a lecture than a story but I can understand why she wanted to provide the information.
Frankly, I was horrified by what I read. I knew that I had suffered abuse within my family when I was a child but after reading this story, I can be thankful that my own abuse was much milder and left less of a shadow on the rest of my life. That is not to diminish any form of abuse. Abuse is just that and it becomes part of what forms you as an individual.
Personally, I would have preferred some of the information in a preface to the book. Either that, or less stories of abuse in a single book – perhaps spread across two or three. That’s a difficult thing to do, so perhaps, the preface would make more sense.
This is also the first book in this series I have read. It could easily be read as a stand-alone book but there are references to other stories that piqued my interest and made me want to go back and read them. My recommendation is to read the stories in order so you can see how the characters have grown and what their shared history is.