The abductor is a woman who looks after her home, eats healthily, and seemingly wants the best for Tonya, that is until her buttons are pushed and her past is revealed. A woman who is happy to swear at her children and cause them physical injuries. This is a woman who doesn’t know how to be a mother. In the beginning, you feel that all though abduction is never right that perhaps Tonya not being with her mother was for the best. We do get to read small sections from Tonya but these were the parts that I felt didn’t work as she was only five years old yet spoke like an adult, lots of swearing and mentioning things such as being hungry and not getting enough food and that at least she would be losing weight. The storyline was gripping and had me fully fixated on the two women and little Tonya. As Tonya pushes against the woman, the more she loses it and starts to treat her terribly. The abductor soon discovers that Tonya, or Izzy as she has now named her isn’t the little angel she was hoping for. The aftermath of the media scrutiny on Kim shows the truly horrible side of social media and comments sections on newspapers/websites as people call her all kinds of names, as well as a bad mother and that they are glad the child has been taken. With the promise of seeing some puppies, Tonya walks off with the woman. A woman approaches Tonya and talks to her until she notices some bruising and decides that the child needs a loving home. Her mother is a foul-mouthed woman who has been shouting at her daughter and on the phone moments before. The book is told in mainly two viewpoints, Kim the mother of the child that has gone missing, and the woman who took her known as ‘Mummy’.įive-year-old Tonya is with her mum and little brother Darryl out shopping when she wanders off to look at something. I definitely recommend this book.Ĥ.5 stars - Book Reviewed on Call Me Mummy is a brutal, harsh, yet surprising easy read that I read in just one day. I savored this book because of the dynamics and dichotomy, having to put aside my own judgements and instead focus on the impact and ripple effects for each character. The book gave me much to think about and analyze. Isn’t her palpable grief and remorse enough pain for one lifetime?Īll in all, I can’t say that I particularly liked any of the main characters, including the child, but together I loved their story. Instead of wanting to destroy a malicious kidnapper, they instead misfired their hate and spite for a mother, another victim, who made a tragic mistake. One thing that really struck me is how angry and inflamed people became once the news of the kidnapping broke. Reactions to their agony left me speechless and in a state of disbelief, multiple times, and I wondered how far they would sink into the murky waters of pain before they would see there is a bottom and slowly push to rise to the surface. Aside from this, her love for her child and missing her child is palpable. She and her husband struggle financially and often things have to wait until their hand-to-mouth payday, not to mention Kim is struggling with the kids on her own, because her husband needs to work extra hours. Due to such a street-hard life, Kim is a hardened, foul-mouthed force to be reckoned, which is why she has only 1 friend. She has cleaned up her life and is now married and loves her children. Kim, Tanya’s mother, has also had a rough life and a horrible history involving drugs and alcohol. She is unable to have children and desperately wants to love a child in exchange for the child’s affection and adoration. Her upbringing was horrendous, full of violence and abuse. However, she is overly prim, proper and a perfectionist with deeply-rooted religious values. Mummy has a beautiful life and home and seems perfectly capable of doting on a child, giving the child the world. Later in the book Tonya’s perspective is added. The chapters alternate between Kim, the mother, and the kidnapper, referred to as “Mummy”. She’s hyper-focused about what she needs to purchase, resulting in her waning attention span and ignoring her daughter, Tonya, who is a high-energy child simply wanting to look at all the toys.Ī stranger witnessing the event becomes enraged that a mother could be so irresponsible with her child and quickly deems the mother unworthy of having children, rectifying the situation by kidnapping Tonya to raise as her own. Tonya is five and her young son is in a stroller and she’s very pregnant with a third. Kim is in a store shopping with her children. It’s also not a typical child kidnapping story which added to my enjoyment of the book. I loved this character driven story with extremely flawed characters, some I liked and others I did not.
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