Incredibly toxic family, and there's quite a bit of emotional violence from the brother towards the main character. There's extreme gaslighting from a large number of the people in the book towards the main character/author.
The author's brother was heavily abusive to her, and specific episodes and techniques are described in detail throughout. The author's parents' defense of the brother is the reason why she does not communicate with most of her family.
"abusive" may be a strong word, but the parents are very dysfunctional and make many decisions that are often cause injury and are generally detrimental to the children
The author's brother's abuse of her toes the line of sexual assault, in my view. He calls her names like wench and whore and slut. One instance of abuse involves him holding her arms over her head so that her shirt revealed more of her body. Another involved him tearing clothes off of her in a public space.
Shaun suffers multiple traumatic brain injuries: one from falling off a high place, one from fighting, and one from falling off his motorcycle. The last one is the most severe, with the author noting that she could see through to his brain.
One brother suffers burns on his leg and survives. Another suffers burns on his face, hands, and other parts of his upper body and also ends up surviving.
not horror, but there are a lot or accidents that wound people, including severe burns, one to the face thatbis described vividly. not super gory but could be disturbing to someone sensitive to this.
I would argue that the injuries the main character endures are described in gory detail. I ended up skipping over large passages because the descriptions were too detailed for me.
Teeth are chipped in various accidents throughout. The author needs a root canal at one point because her tooth is rotting and had been doing so for years.
But there is a scene where someone wants to remove someone from a toxic family situation, though that would technically be kidnapping, but they don’t go through with the plan
But a scene where someone points out the children dont know how to clean themselves and there is a lot of shame around the lack of hygiene which may be a trigger
The author goes to attempt to donate blood and she can’t because her veins are too small. She also mentions her decision to get vaccinated as an adult but doesn’t describe the experience
One of the author's brothers has a stutter, and the narrator of the audiobook imitates it while narrating. The author uses terms like "deranged" and "crazy" to describe how she feels after being gaslighted by her brother and other family members
Very bittersweet. The author functionally lost her family by standing up for herself and her siblings against her brother's abuse. Some family members stood by her but most didn't