Learning to Cry

Here's my review of Christopher C. Payne's "Learning to Cry."

When I first read the back cover of this book I was pretty excited. I lost my father in September of 2009, and the way the daughter in this book acted reminded me so much of myself as a young teenager. I was prepared to dive into a relationship similar to the one that I've lived through - and that is just what I got, to an extent.

The book was extremely well written but I repeatedly found myself wondering if it was fact or fiction. In a way that was really exciting, the thought of not really knowing, but it was also quite disturbing at times because of the things the daughter, Melissa, puts herself through. The only thing I would say that is negative is the ending. I spent the entire book expecting things to go one way and it ended really oddly. Normally I'm a big fan of twists in a story but this was no twist, it was the story dusting off it's boots and running in the total opposite direction.

All and all this is a heart wrenching story of a father trying to figure out where he lost his little girl, and how to connect with the out of control teenager she had become. Along the way he seems to lose himself, and it takes a major turn of events and several years to realize that his old self will never return.