Title: Redemption: My Story of Childhood Abuse – From Brokenness to a Lifetime of Healing
Author: Chelsea Freeman
Publisher: Fulton Books
ISBN: 979-8892216494
Pages: 186
Genre: Abuse / Self-Help / Nonfiction
Reviewer: Tony Esponiza

Read Book Review

There are a great many evils in the world which people must struggle against, many of which are born from mankind. The most heartbreaking and devastating thing a person can hear of is the abuse children suffer growing up. A home and family are meant to be places of comfort and safety, and yet far too often stories of children enduring emotional, mental, and physical abuse at the hands of parents and other figures in their life who are meant to protect them come to light and show the darkest aspects humanity has to offer.

Finding hope and inspiration during these dark moments in life often becomes the driving force behind a person’s life, and that is what brought author Chelsea Freeman’s Redemption: My Story of Childhood Abuse – From Brokenness to a Lifetime of Healing, to life. The book follows the author’s life from an early age, telling a painful story of abuse and survival in a home which found little hope or light. From the abuse suffered at the hands of loved ones and strangers alike, to the long journey of recovery the author went on, and the experiences that helped her turn a corner through it all, the book explores what happens when someone who has suffered greatly finally speaks their truth, and the journey it took to come back from those experiences.

A heartbreaking and emotional book, the author pours in a rare balance of honesty and heart that isn’t always found in a book of this nature. The author isn’t afraid to go into the gruesome details of her experiences, instead brandishing it like a spotlight meant to bring the perpetrators and criminals behind these experiences into the light. The honesty the author exuded came from moments of fear and introspection as she lived through these experiences, even years later in search of love and relationships she never got the chance to have growing up and then finding new relationships to help guide her years later. The powerful writing style the author utilized brought these events into painful detail and yet painted a powerful image in the reader’s minds of the strength and courage it takes for a person living through these moments to rise above the pain and confront that trauma head-on.

Readers who enjoy nonfiction books, especially self-help and memoir style books that focus or hone in on helping survivors of abuse to confront their trauma, this is the book those readers will return to time and time again. The juxtaposition of how much of the abuse surrounded organized religion and how people refused to take accountability in those situations was astonishing, and yet the author’s perseverance in keeping their faith and still shining the light that was needed in this book was inspiring.