Somebody's Daughter

Beautiful writing, but I suspect this is a case of mis-marketing. I was expecting there to be much more about Ford's father and how his incarceration affected her in big and small ways, and that was a much smaller focus of the book; so when she wrote frequently about her insecurities and desperation to feel loved as her body developed and she grew afraid of men and boys, I expected that to carry through, though as she moved up the job-and-moving-cities ladder, that kind of fell off too. How did she overcome that insecurity, as she got closer to her now-husband Kelly? A seemingly better relationship with her mother is something to be glad of, yes, but not the end-all-be-all of overcoming insecurity. And ... maybe this wasn't for the reader to be privy to (but it's a memoir!!), but after Ford's anguish about what her dad was in prison for, I expected that the conversation (or at least its ramifications) would occur on-page? I don't know, there's no good way to that conversation to occur, and no good answer that could come of it anyway, but it seemed framed to go that way and then didn't.

I still enjoyed reading this, even though it did not take the turns I expected. 3.5 stars.

TW: stillbirth, physical abuse/child abuse, rape