初讀這本書時有些年輕時代讀邱妙津的溺水感，所承載的且又深廣得多：家暴、霸凌、戰爭、種族、性別。而這又是那麼一部自傳性的作品，年過三十的自己，已是不忍再直視他人痛苦的年紀，過程中好幾次不得不換本書大口換氣，但作者不帶自憐的溫柔述說又讓我一次次自願地深潛下去。
溫柔而不控訴地道出剝奪復剝奪的生命歷程，再回歸到原生家庭這個永恆起點，不否認傷痛、但試著與之和解。這是需要多麼強韌而良善的心靈才做得到呢？
就像儘管是在一開始就出現數場的家暴場景，但我們更不會忘記的是最後作者給困於戰後PTSD的媽媽的這段祝福："I know you believe in reincarnation. I don't know if I do but I hope it's real. Because then maybe you'll come back here next time around. Maybe you'll be a girl and maybe your name will be Rose again, and you'll have a room full of books with parents who will read you bedtime stories in a country not touched by war. Maybe then, in that life and in this future, you'll find this book and you'll know what happened to us. Maybe."
另外忍不住想說，作者的文字真的是太美了。慢慢讀著，看著靈光閃閃的警句一個個煙花般在眼前爆開實在是難忘的體驗。容我在此任性地多分享幾段吧XD：
"They say nothing lasts forever but they're just scared it will last longer than they can love it."
"All this time I told myself we were born from war - but I was wrong, Ma. We were born from beauty. Let no one mistake us for the fruit of violence - but that violence, having passed through the fruit, failed to spoil it."
"I am thinking of beauty again, how some things are hunted because we have deemed them beautiful. If, relative to the history of our planet, an individual life is so short, a blink, as they say, then to be gorgeous, even from the day you're born to the day you die, is to be gorgeous only briefly. (…) To be gorgeous, you must first be seen, but to be seen allows you to be hunted.”
