i am not going to see the movie, as i have read and enjoyed the book several times and frankly i think the movie looks like crap.
as an adult child of abusive parents and a survivor of a seriously dysfunctional family, i identified with much of the book. one of the things i came away with after reading it is that mothers are human. they make mistakes, they may even be shitty mothers, but you only get one mother and if there's a way to forgive her, do it.
of course our kids will judge us as parents, doesn't everyone look back at their life and pass judgment on what our parents did and didn't do? kids only have their reality to judge parents by, but as they grow and possibly become parents themselves, they can sometimes see their parents' realities, and judge less harshly.
without getting into too much personal detail, it's only been in the past year that i am able to even contemplate the pain my mother has lived with and what caused her to act the way she did. she was certainly not the mother i wanted, but she is the one i got and now that i am a mommy, i was able to find a way to let go of some of that pain.
anyway, i don't know if you would even want to read the book now, but it is quite good, especially if you are drawn to dysfunctional families. rebecca wells' first book "little altars everywhere" showcases that same family in a different way. i think it's more of a character study than a novel, but it's enjoyable nonetheless. it's darker than ya-ya's, though, so it may depress you even more!
