Hi Dian, thank you for saying the writing is top-notch. You read a lot of books! Your compliment (everyone’s) is meaningful to me. I tried to craft a unique style, yet some phrases came to me as if they just evolved out of thin air, without any effort. I should be so lucky as to have that kind of creative streak with my next book. Yes, it is a hard story to tell, but one that I felt charged to share, as if it was a mission to me sent by a higher power. I didn’t discuss in this forum yet what I chose to put in and leave out, other than saying the first draft had 167,000 words, and the final has @97.000. In the early stages, I hired an editor who told me that not every anecdote had to be in the book. He told me to pick vignettes that were representative of the message I wanted to convey. I left a lot out! And the book, as graphic as it may be, portrays less than what I actually went through, and fewer family members than actually existed. As far as how graphic to be, that was a suggestion from a counselor, who was tired of society trying to soft-peddle abuse in polite terms. She encouraged me to spell it out, and so I did in the events that took place when I was over 13. I did discuss on the site the fact that the character of my cousin, Annie, swore in every sentence. I did not put many curse words into her mouth, although I would have been more accurate to her to put an effing this or that here and there. And, as for what I left out, it leaves room for a sequel!