Tiger, Tiger - Margaux Fragoso

This book is an autobiography of a girl who was groomed and abused starting at age 7 by a man 42 years older than her and while it is shocking, galling and devastating it’s lyrical and beautiful and pragmatic, Margeux above all else was a problem solver. You feel deeply for this child and the woman she would later become but you never pity her. it doesn’t glorify or romanticise their engagement- (although the below quote pulled out of context might make it seem otherwise) but I love reading about her desire to be grown up, she doesn’t litigate the past with her current understanding of it, she recalls and relays from the mind of her child self without judgement.

“I was twelve and love burned in me like sap. Peter got down on his knees as though I was his goddess, as though I really was the only sound he could hear and I filled his head with miraculous ringing, as though I made him permanent, and for this he would always be grateful.”