The Dark Side of Innocence. Cheney Terri. New York: Atria books, 2011. 270 pages.
In the book The Dark Side of Innocence you learn about the childhood and adolescent years of Terri Cheney, the author of this book. This book was very shocking at moments because some events that happen. It keeps you hooked before you can even finish the first chapter. Since it was Terri’s life, everything in it is factual information.
In a little house in Ontario, Canada 40 odd miles away from LA, everything on the outside looked absolutely normal when it was nothing but. Imagine growing up in a world when you know something’s wrong with you but you don’t know what. That’s what Terri’s life was like. Ranging from her deep depression stages going on for sometimes 21 days, to when she was so busy she doesn’t sleep for days. Being crazily angry to be a sweet little girl, but to only get what she needed. It only got worse the night she heard her mother tell her father that something was wrong with her.
Reading this book I felt like I was sometimes sitting in the same room as Terri because she could describe in such vivid detail what was going through her mind. The most important thing in this book is so hard to believe because you wouldn’t think there would be such a thing.
I would recommend this book to just about anyone, except people that don’t like to constantly be surprised. Every time you start a new chapter and a new age you never know what to suspect. This book is often very serious but at other times it’s rather funny. I’d defiantly rate The Dark Side of Innocence as 5 stars.