Author: Kerry Kletter
GoodReads
This book really sank into my gut and stayed with me. I am still thinking about Cassie. It is kind of when you are down, how many times can you get kicked, then run over, then backed up over, and still survive. Who hasn't felt this way? I may or may not have been going through a rough period in my life when I read this. Again truly believe books choose people.
Kerry Kletter really kept the hits coming and yet, it didn't make the book morose or pathetic.
I would love to talk about this book, but not sure how much to reveal. I will say her mother is an absolutely horrible person. I cannot imagine having to deal with this kind of pain over and over again especially not from my own mother. It is hard enough to say, "No," let alone from blood that is supposed to love you unconditionally.
Description: Cassie O’Malley has been trying to keep her head above water—literally and metaphorically—since birth. It’s been two and a half years since Cassie’s mother dumped her in a mental institution against her will, and now, at eighteen, Cassie is finally able to reclaim her life and enter the world on her own terms.
But freedom is a poor match against a lifetime of psychological damage. As Cassie plumbs the depths of her new surroundings, the startling truths she uncovers about her own family narrative make it impossible to cut the tethers of a tumultuous past. And when the unhealthy mother-daughter relationship that defined Cassie’s childhood and adolescence threatens to pull her under once again, Cassie must decide: whose version of history is real? And more important, whose life must she save?
A bold, literary story about the fragile complexities of mothers and daughters and learning to love oneself, The First Time She Drowned reminds us that we must dive deep into our pasts if we are ever to move forward.
