PROCLIVITY
BONNIE L. KERN
ISBN# 1-4241-7210-1
August 2007
Publish America
P.O. Box 151, Frederick, MD 21705
Trade Paperback
$19.95
188 pages
Fiction
Rating: 1 cup

Beverly was born in Iowa right before the end of World War II. Her parents were just coming out of the Great Depression and hardly have any money. Before Beverly was born they lost some of their children to disease and in addition had multiple miscarriages. Right out of the gate, Beverly’s life is an on-going saga of abuse and death.

Her family, farming people do not know what to make of their eldest daughter. As Beverly grows from a child to a teenager, she is not like normal girls. She has no friends to speak of and her mother treats her horribly. The only person she is close to is her father. Beverly becomes more emotionally detached as she suffers physical abuse from her mother and sexual abuse from her various family members, both men and women.

Because of this abuse, Beverly’s life becomes a downward spiral of mental illness, teen pregnancy, drug and alcohol abuse and finally prostitution. Even when things are looking up, Beverly cannot help but hit the bottom over and over again. Through her own willpower, Beverly finally realizes she has been a victim most of her life and finally gets the help she needs to overcome her demons.

I simply cannot say what type of book Proclivity is or where the author was going with this story. There is hardly any dialogue and the narration is written much like a newspaper article. The soap opera like traumas Beverly experiences throughout most of her life are very unbelievable. I felt no compassion for the continual abuse Beverly goes through because everything is just stated as fact and is never really fully explained. This story came across more as a term paper for school than anything else. I would have to take a pass on the history of poor Beverly.

Kate
Reviewer for Coffee Time Romance
Reviewer for Karen Find Out About New Books