WOMEN WE BURIED, WOMEN WE BURNED A Memoir

Rachel Louise Snyder's trauma and empathy are powerfully present in her narration of this memoir. Snyder's mother died when she was 8; two years later her father remarried and violently forced strict evangelical principles upon her family. Kicked out of school and her home at 16, she could barely manage her life; she was too young for a lease or bank account. Snyder's voice is deep and expressive. She sounds calm in the face of constant obstacles--as if she hasn't connected the dots between her chaotic childhood and her self-destructive behavior. When she becomes a mother and recognizes the cruelty and inappropriateness of her parents, it lands like a gut punch. But this is a story of forgiveness, and Snyder's care of her dying stepmother decades later is beautiful and tender. A.B. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine [Published: JULY 2023]