Her Last Death
Susanna Sonnenberg
Published 2008
Published by Scribner
Summary :
The novel Her Last Death by Susanna Sonnenberg is a jaw-dropping auto-biography. The story is told in dual-narrative voice. The story primarily takes place in London. As the story opens up, Sonnenberg is introduced as a grown women living with her husband along with her two kids. She then gets a phone call from her aunt, Irene, informing her that her mother, Daphne had just been in a car accident. Sonnenberg struggles with a self conflict as she is trying to decide whether or not she should fly to Barbados to see how her mother is doing. From that point, Sonnenberg tells her story describing her relationship with her mother, starting with her childhood. She takes the audience through the journey of her life, which then changes the perspective of how life itself is viewed.
Quotation:
"He smiled. "All right, listen to me carefully," he said. "The next time this happens, you are to say in an extremely loud voice, "Take your hands off me!" He was satisfied."
Reaction:
This is what came out of Susanna's stepfather's mouth after she told him that she had been molested by the guy who was sitting two seats away from him. How her stepdad reacted shocked me in a negative way because I would expect a dad to be unbelievably angry and incredibly protective over his daughter after hearing news like that. Instead, he dad just smiled and gave her "advice". I feel as though her stepdad didnt really step up and act like a responsible father to Susanna. I feel that this scene was very symbolic for the book itself. In the story, there was a reoccurring topic of independence and responsibility taken into the wrong hands.
