The most recommended books about child abuse

Yes, the film adaptation of Push by Lee Daniels garnered Oscar attention, including a best supporting actress win for actress - comedian Monique but Sapphire’s contemporary Harlem set coming-of-age story about the difficult life of teen protagonist Precious is best told in Sapphire’s novel Push.

It is a devastating, exhilarating read that I couldn’t put down until the last page so shocked was I about the level of challenges Precious endures from her home life to social services and school experiences.

However, then there’s this amazing grace present that doesn’t seem likely, which just makes the name Precious and the title word “push” that much more revelatory. It’s another story that reminded me why I should keep writing and why books and the words we write can be important beyond our expectations. 

This book written by Ellen Middleton is based on a true story of a little girl who grows up in adulthood to face motherhood, grief, rape, sexuality issues, and mental health.

It gives you this sense of right and wrong. She has a good sense of humour at the same time.

She finds the ability to love no matter what pain endured at the hands of others. Being let down by those who are supposed to love and care for you is heartbreaking.

A lot of people don’t know that the movie Precious is based off of a novel. Sure... It doesn’t have any ghouls, monsters, descriptive sentences filled with gore and macabre, but if you were like me, and decided to read the book after watching the film…. This movie goes down as probably one of the scariest novels of all time…like V.C. Andrews Flowers in the Attic scary. It’s hard reading novels that involve the abuse of children, but this book literally had me speechless and horrified like the first time I watched an episode of, My 500 Pound Life.

I really enjoyed this book because of the way the author described the setting and really made you feel as though you were there. I also liked the pace of the book and I was never bored reading it. I thought the ending was very unexpected and different to any other books I’ve read.

This book hit different than the rest of them. It was a storyline that had heartbreak and suffering happening from so many different angles. It was the first time I realized as an author and as a reader that there could be more to a plotline than just the straight and narrow. I remember going through all the emotions and being hooked in from the first page all the way until the last. The cover drew me in immediately but the story tucked inside has me coming back years later. 

I liked the suspense baked into this story of a runaway girl, Bea. The entire novel was written in emails, mostly between her and her brother, Erza. Each exchange demonstrated their tight sibling bond and their unhappy home life since their parent’s divorce. 

Bea leaves home after receiving a mysterious Twitter message from who she believes is her birth father. She hasn’t seen her dad in years and lives far from him. The story centers on escaping her abusive stepfather, apathetic mother, and her need to reconnect with her father. But she’s taking a risk by meeting a stranger from Twitter. Could he really be her long-lost dad or someone else?

In my school, a dog-eared copy of the completely messed-up and horrifying Flowers In The Attic was passed around as contraband. We were not allowed to read it, which, of course, added to the appeal.

Many people find the character of “the grandmother” of the kids locked up in the attic pretty terrifying. But for me, Corinne, their weak and stupid mother, is the true villain of the story.

The slow betrayal she indulges in, as her children lose out to her desire for social acceptance and the high life is utterly heartbreaking.

If you like a very sick story about how the sins of one generation get visited upon the next, you will love Flowers in the Attic.

Boy Toy is a book that stands out for me because it tackles a rarely discussed subject in young adult literature—the sexual abuse of boys. In this case, the protagonist, Josh, was molested by a teacher when he was younger. Now that he is about to graduate from high school, the repercussions of that abuse, along with the everyday stress he deals with, is coming back to haunt him. Lyga handles this subject matter in an unflinching and realistic way, which can be uncomfortable at times. That said, Boy Toy is definitely a worthwhile, original read.

I chose this title because it’s the first story that made me fall in love with this genre. There is a deep sense of authenticity stemming from the reality of finding love after abuse. It helps the reader understand the true emotions of someone navigating through life after years of childhood abuse and trauma. Afton’s writing creates a beautiful story from beginning to end, while bringing the reader on an emotional roller coaster at the same time. This story left an impact on my heart and greatly influenced my writing as an author. 

An insightful book based on her agonizing childhood abuse that was first published in 1978, it brought global attention to the subject of hidden family secrets within public figures. During this time I was living my family pain. I couldn't stop shedding tears for Christina, reading this book of a young girl shown off to the world as a fortunate little princess. A lot like my mother, being dragged around the world in front of the media for Ahmad and Maryam Jamal especially during their awful divorce.

Shedding light on the guarded world of Hollywood. Giving us a look into Christina's relentless, alcoholic abuser: her adoptive mother, movie star Joan Crawford. Becoming an adult, Christina struggled for her independence like many stars do today.

After my struggles to find a printer for The God Squad in 1988, it is refreshing to see how receptive readers are to this brave memoir by Maureen Sullivan, subtitled “My Story of Love and Loss as a Survivor of the Magdalene Laundries”.

When twelve years old, Sullivan told a teacher she was being sexually abused by her stepfather. A day later she was incarcerated in a Magdalene Laundry. The nuns promised to educated her. Instead she became their indentured slave, washing and scrubbing, with little food or water and subjected to beatings.

The title comes from how the nuns kept her hidden in a tunnel when government inspectors came. Novelists can try to imagine these worlds, but only a survivor (and campaigner for other survivors) like Sullivan can really capture that purgatory.

Billy’s family gets caught up in the care system when the six-year-old narrator is smacked by his father. An only child surrounded by adults, Billy emulates the talk of others but mishears and repeats language incorrectly with hilarious results. Malapropism sees Billy using the word copulating instead of cooperating, he loves sayings but transcribes them incorrectly giving us a different cuttlefish rather than a different kettle of fish. Through Billy’s voice, readers are securely within the mind of a child. Extended periods of internal monologue and interrupted using an em dash to indicate speech. Questions directly to the reader add to the sense of intimacy created in this fine novel.

In my early twenties a friend lent me this book and said it would make me cry. I remember sitting on my bed with a bag of crisps and read half of it in one evening and the other half the next day. I was unaware child abuse existed outside of my own life and for years believed things had only happened to me, I was also unaware that you could talk about it in a book. Little Dave’s story certainly did make me cry, a lot, little did that friend know was that I had faced similar challenges as a child and related to this story on such a different level, she also didn’t realise it would begin a whole journey of my own.

I flipped through one of Torey Hayden’s books in a small library last summer and liked what I read. I looked her up later and discovered she is a special education teacher who’s published many accounts of the toughest cases she’s had to deal with. 

Ghost Girl reads like a thriller. Based on her experience with a strange child named Jade, Hayden recounts how she uncovers the girl’s dark secrets of ritual abuse and tries to help her out of her situation. Many deny that ritual abuse actually takes place because solid evidence is hard to come by, but this case shows it exists and must be taken seriously.

I particularly like the epilogue in which Hayden describes her research and findings on this topic. 

I love all of Marsha Skrypuch’s YA books. Page-turning plots, engaging characters, inspired by real events. Her novels focus on Ukrainian and Polish young people’s experiences under both Hitler and Stalin. This one stands out to me, first because of the cover and secondly, because of the author’s ability to wrench my heart. The novel focuses on a young Polish girl, deemed Aryan enough, so she can be raised in a Nazi family. It was a story that opened my eyes. These horrendous things happened to innocent kids.

A dark story about a corrupt man, An Obedient Father unfolds in a closely observed world. From page one: “It was morning. The sky was blue from edge to edge. I had just bathed and was on my balcony hanging a towel over the ledge. The May heat was so intense that as soon as I stepped out of the flat, worms of sweat appeared on my bald scalp.” The close sensory detail makes a dark story shockingly intimate.

I’m a big fan of the Hunger Games trilogy, from its gripping concept and what the history of its world says about humanity, to the violent challenges Katniss must face if she’s to protect the ones she loves.

I adore writing strong female leads in violently challenging worlds too! So I wasn’t sure how engaged I would be reading from the perspective of the struggling-with-appearances Coriolanus Snow. I was so glad I gave it a go! Some stories need you to trust them with a couple of chapters of reading, but then they capture you, just like this one did!

Once I read two books in this genre I was hooked, hooked on finding out more, hooked on realising there were people in the world like me that had been through the worst within their childhood. It was my little secret way of facing my own demons knowing I wasn’t alone. I lived in fear of my truth, yet Constance tells her truth of physical and emotional abuse as well as living through a loveless childhood flawlessly. I couldn’t put it down and read it in three days.

In the Clearing is told from the POV of Amy and Freya, and while Freya’s chapters have her living in small-town Australia, it’s teenager Amy’s chapters that are the most chilling.

Amy lives with her ‘family’ in the Clearing, a place far away from anything and anyone. She has a regimented life where she’s expected to work and go to school. There are also specific rules to keep the family running as it should and the threat of punishment is always present.

The isolated location of the Clearing, surrounded by harsh Australian bush, means safety and a place to hide dark secrets for some, but to others it is a prison. With the disappearance of a child, Amy and Freya’s stories combine as the past is exposed.

If You Tell reads like a fiction mystery novel. I wasn’t paying attention when I started reading this, and I thought it was fiction. When I realized this book was based on a true story it bewildered me. You hear stories about people, how horrible they can be, but this mother had to be a fictional character – she’s not. She will give you nightmares.