Book Review: American Daughter

American Daughter

A Memoir of Intergenerational Trauma, a Mother’s Dark Secrets, and a Daughter’s Quest for Redemption

by Stephanie Thornton Plymale with Elissa Wald

Greenleaf Book Group

River Grove Books

Biographies & Memoirs. |. Parenting & Families

Pub Date 11 Feb 2020

I am reviewing a copy of American Daughter through Greenleaf Book Group/River Grove Books and Netgalley:

Stephanie Thornton Plymale survived a head on collision in a mail truck stolen by her Mother’s boyfriend. At the age of five she was in the back of a van that was going seventy miles an hour. She would survive a drunken crash where the vehicle rolled over and though she was twice unscathed physically, the trauma of it all would leave her mute for years at a time. Later she would experience life threatening burns due to neglect, and she became blind in one eye. She went from being homeless to feeling isolated in the dependent unit of the State of California , she would be placed in different foster homes one of those foster homes she endured unimaginable abuse. By the time she was ten the life Stephanie knew was one of criminal neglect chronic hunger, truancy, homelessness, and ongoing sexual violation. She would later learn that The terror and fear that she…