This Does Not Leave This House: The Heartbreaking True Story by Julie Coons

Stars: ****

Createspace (2018)
Memoir/Abuse
194 pages

Summary: How does a little girl survive an abusive mother, Catholic school, rape, and a near-death experience? Raised by an abusive, narcissistic mother (who once tried to trick her into having an abortion), Julie Coons was also raped in college by a stranger and later married an abusive man who threatened to kill her if she ever tried to leave. Suffering from physical and mental torment resulting in very low self-esteem, Julie often felt so completely alone during the many struggles of her life that she tried to take her own life. This book is her true story—telling all the secrets she was never allowed to tell to encourage and motivate others to heal their own lives and break the cycle of abuse. Her story shows that there is hope and life after abuse. Now that the secrets are finally out, Julie has found freedom. So can you.

Disclosure: I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. This post contains affiliate links.

This Does Not Leave This House

I’ve been reading a lot of abuse memoirs lately and each of them has horrible stories of what they went through. But I was shocked near the start of this book not for a behind closed doors story of abuse from family but for what she went through at SCHOOL.

From Chapter 3:

“I’m in a basement, I’m chained to my chair and I’m six years old.”

My first though was oh my god your parents chained you to a chair! But no, it’s worse than that. Her TEACHER chained her to a chair. Why? Because she was left handed. Did she have a crazy teacher? No, apparently this was normal for a Catholic school at the time for left-handed kids. For many kids, school is an escape for a crappy home life but Julie couldn’t even escape torment at school. She goes on to talk more about her Catholic school experience which was very negative to say the least.

The book name, This Does Not Leave This House comes from what her parents always said to her about what happened at home. She was always told to not tell anyone what was going on.

I think only one thing would make the book better, I would have liked to have seen it written in a more chronological order. The book jumps around from childhood to teenage years to adult and back again and I prefer a more linear approach. This is probably just personal preference though.

Another thing I’d like to note is while the last abuse memoir I read had a Christian slant this one talks about various paranormal experiences. If this interests you, you will find Julie’s experiences interesting. I’m just letting you know so you can make a decision about if this book is for you.

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