Yikes
When I was a child, I hated loud noises. I would run from the vacuum cleaner or the sound of someone yelling. When the vacuum cleaner was running or mom and dad were fighting, I would sit in the kneehole under my favourite mahogany desk with my hands over my ears.
Reading Alias Madame Doubtfire, I find myself looking for that mahogany desk and its welcoming darkness. I think I read through the first section, around three chapters, holding my breath and cringing. I can’t believe this book was ever made. Just about from the beginning of the first chapter, the whole story involves a bitter father with a sense of humor coping with his three kids on his nights for custody, all the while saying horrible things about her and miming various methods of homicide.
This book is painful. I don’t really know if I want to finish it. I keep expecting there to be signs of a change of heart, but it’s nowhere in sight. It’s such a horrible cycle and I can’t imagine anyone wanting to be so graphic about such a relationship as this one in a book. On the other hand, I’m sure it’s nice for kids who are really facing this situation at home to look into a situation they relate to and see some humor. Unfortunately, I find the humor quite gallows and mostly too weak and not appropriate enough to overcome the painful circumstances. I can only feel so sorry for those kids! Maybe it’s my background betraying me - I’m not sure I could fathom being shuttled from one parent to another, having to choose between two bitter people and deal with their distance and lack of reason.
Even though I already know what the storyline is from having seen the movie as a kid, I’m still shocked at the sheer mean-spirited nature of the adults in this book and their careless attitude about what it does to the kids. This is not a book I would either read to children, nor want to teach with it. This book is the unsanitized, less-funny version of the movie, so far.