Title: Ultimate Cruelty: A Mother’s Memoir
Author: Sara M. Doiron
Publisher: PageTurner Press and Media LLC
ISBN: 979-8-88963-987-9
Pages: 578
Genre: Memoir
Reviewed by: Aaron Washington
Hollywood Book Reviews
When you start reading the book, you are loaded with intrigue, which then transforms into concern and empathy. Ultimate Cruelty: A Mother’s Memoir is a book which takes readers on a rollercoaster of emotions. At one moment, you are cheerfully enjoying tales of a mother and her children; at another moment, you are filled with rage because of the tragic turn events take. This book is not just a memoir, but a book full of life lessons. You learn about patience, love, hope, the justice system, and vices such as drug problems. The story is thoughtfully narrated, with the author perfectly capturing different attributes of the characters, their traits, lifestyle, and the impact they had. This book will bring you to tears and make you reflect on Lois McMaster Bujold’s quote ‘”The dead cannot cry out for justice; it is a duty of the living to do so for them.”
Ultimate Cruelty: A Mother’s Memoir starts on a rather concerning note. We have a worried mother whose daughter seems to be a handful. Kyla, the author’s daughter, is a teenage girl who wants that fast life. She is not at home, and the mother is worried until she returns later. She seems unapologetic and pays no attention to her poor mother, who has been worried, asking for her whereabouts from Amanda, Kyla’s sister, and even her friend Judy, among other people. The relationship between mother and daughter is rocky during most of the narration, but you can feel the love the two share. Enter Shane, and we have a new character which is hard to love. Shane is in a relationship with Kyla, a relationship many people in Kyla’s life do not approve of. From the onset, the reader can see that this Shane guy is shady.
As a reader, you are forced to take multiple breaks through the chapters as the author paints a picture of their home. The narration can get overwhelming. Life from the outside may look simple, but once you are immersed in this mother’s and her children’s world, you see how demanding things are. Every chapter is heavy on its own, but the chapter where Kyla is confirmed dead takes a toll on the reader. The details, the investigations, the cause of death, and the parties involved; I applaud Sara Doiron for penning down every story fragment, as it must have been extremely difficult for her to chronicle the distressing events. Kyla, a teenager, got involved with the wrong crowd and was influenced into drugs. The person she was dating and most people in her circle never cared about her, which led to her passing.
As Sara Doiron writes all this, you cannot help but feel empathy and dismay for the grieving mother. It gets more alarming when the mother starts seeking justice for her departed daughter, as the legal system is complex and can test one’s patience. This memoir is an exceptional read for anyone who has been through grief or lost a loved one as a result of the drug epidemic. It is also eye-opening as the reader is enlightened on the justice system, parenting, dealing with conflict and forgiveness.