A Man Named Dave
Written by Dave Pelzer
Published by the Penguin Group
Publish Copyright, 1999
Book Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Children all over the world go through unthinkable things right in front of our eyes all the time. Things most of us wouldn't even understand. How would you like to understand how they felt about their abuse experiences?
A Man Named Dave is the last book of three of an autobiography series by Dave Pelzer. The first two of his books are about his unimaginable abuse inflicted by his mother as a young child and teenager. In this book he narrates his coming of age into adulthood, enlisting in the Air Force to the present day. In this book he truly wanted to write about his forgiveness to others. Through the book Dave wrote about different events from relationships to how he felt about things.
One very important setting in this book was the Russian river and the redwood trees. This place was a token of confidence and hope to keep going for David. As a child he thought about how one day he would be able to have a cabin on the river with his father. Once he was an adult his father got sick and passed away. This made him want to follow through with his dream to make his dad proud. Eventually he saved up enough money and bought a cabin on the river. And thought the rest of the story he enjoyed the river with his family.
At the beginning of the book Dave was very shy, not outgoing, and he thought he did not deserve anyone's help or love. Through his life something significant changed his perspective on life forever. He learns to not hold grudges and not hate anyone. I think his development as a person really was shining through by the end of the book. He became more outgoing, writing a book, and started to see his self worth. Even his mother who abused him for many years and could not for the life of her apologize, Dave forgave her and realized what he was put through was not his fault.
Dave's Mother on the other hand was a very self entitled person. She would only do things if they helped her or made her look better. She was a master manipulator and through the story you can see how that affected Dave. She never saw the bad in what she was doing and would never apologize for her actions. She also could not take what she dished out. If something happened to her she would burst into flames and burn anyone who got in her way. I think that she had difficulty understanding how her actions influenced the people around her. She was always the victim and I was not a big fan of hers and I'm sure most people are not.
I think this book has helped me to see a way different view on life. You cannot go through life holding grudges with everyone and hating everyone. This book has showed when you let go of things you can work on yourself and what you have to offer. I think the author did a great job at showing different emotions for different events and how he overcame them. I also think that this book gives you a reality check. It shows that life can be hard but you can just give up your motivation to keep going. All that Dave had gone through and he still made a positive spin onto anything negative. I think this shows that there can be good in most things even if at the moment they don't seem bad. Dave, at the moment when he was living with is monster thought what he was going through was horrible (which it was). But once he grew up he wrote about how those experiences shaped him and how he learned to be a good person from it all.
I would honestly recommend this book to anyone. I loved this book and I think most people would. There are so many different things going on and so many things you could take from reading this book. You definitely need to not be squeamish because at times he goes into detail about things his mother had done to him. There are many different themes to this novel and you start to see life through a different lens. This book is very eye opening and anyone would be able to take something they read from the book and apply it to their life.
