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Title: Brutal, honest, heart-breaking. It made me angry.
Review: I read Hole in the World while writing the story of my own dismal childhood. It made me realize that mine wasn't as bad as I had thought, even though it was pretty bad. This is a shocking book, one that causes tears to fall thinking about this boy suffering at the hands of a stepmother while his father did nothing, abandoning his responsibilities as a father. It is shocking that school officials and neighbors didn't intervene. Hurray for Stanley's courage in going to the police. Most shocking of all is to know, from volunteer work I do now as a retiree, that this kind of abuse continues and, if anything, society is even less able now to stop it or cope with the effects on its victims.
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