Constance Briscoe

I am honestly astounded. I am at a loss to understand how a mother can treat just one of her children like this, and nobody intervenes! Even when that child goes to school, visibly beaten up, and says that she will not go home, nobody does anything?

Granted, this is not today. It was thirty odd years ago, so I can only hope that today someone would step in and do something. Just how loud does a child have to cry for help before she's heard? Does she have to get killed first? Constance didn't, show more of course, but she's lucky. Lucky that all she had to suffer were beatings, so severe that her young traumatised breasts developed breast cancer, so severe that her hair fell out. And that was just the physical abuse. I don't know which is worse. The physical abuse or the emotional abuse. Just how bad can a child feel that she feels so worthless, and such a germ that she drinks bleach, because bleach kills all known germs, and she doesn't want to live any longer. And even suffering the effects of drinking bleach, nobody calls a doctor for her!

What sort of people are they?? I just can't imagine. show less

2012-10-31
Visst är det en hemskt och tragisk uppväxt Constance har haft oc h att det finna barn som växer upp under sådana hemska förhållande är ofattbart men som bok är det tyvärr ingen märkvärdig historia . Antagligen för att det finns redan så många böcker som handlar om stackars barn och deras gryma föräldrar . Jag upplevde äcklig som tjatig och fast det inte är någon tjock bok så upprepades så mycket i den att jag upplevde att boken aldrig tog slut.

Ugly by Constance Briscoe is a very chilling true story of child abuse that will thug at the very core of your being and make you stop and ask yourself just how many children are out there going through life with unknown scars like Constance did.

Beaten, abused and scared on a almost daily basis by her Jamiacan born mother, Constance went personally to a childrne home, asking to be admitted just to get away from the daily abuse, but they refuse to accept her.

She was forced to bare the brunt show more of the sad abuse metted out to her by her own mother, even in her teenage years, but persevere and kept her focused on ehr dream to be a barrister and succeeded against all the odds.

This is a book truly worth reading. show less

Calling it an enthralling read but only giving it 4 stars may seem strange but all will be revealed! This was a fabulous text to read, written with the child writer in mind I felt. Looking at situations how they were presented to her, rather than trying to address from the adult she now is.

I do not know how a single adult outside her life did not push for further investigations - one day she turned up at school with her face a mess at having been beaten up. There is more to it than simply show more how I state it but I don't want to spoil the plot for someone.

Getting to know Constance through the situations she faced was quite harrowing - particularly the incident where she had to go to hospital. Her parents called her by another name and again, it was revealing when she found out what her real name was, although I felt more may have been revealed to the reader at this point.

She had clearly detached herself from her family, but who wouldn't - however this came across in the book as making her seem very cold. I wouldn't have wanted to know why the mother abused her daughter - as this is a different book entirely, but I am surprised in this book why she didn't question her father's responsibilities.

And so to why I put 4 stars. I felt one more chapter was needed. Not to necessarily 'put the world to rights' but to just delve into her adulthood slightly. Although the book did come to a natural end and I felt this was fine, I just would have liked to know a touch more. A 'complete' book, talking about her childhood, that I am pleased I read. show less