Sonya Gail Taylor faces a life-altering decision when her secret past threatens her idyllic present. A successful attorney, wife, and mother living in Georgia with her husband and three teenage children, Sonya thought she was safe from the terrifying childhood she bled onto the pages of a senior writing project trying to leave the pain and fear in her past when she left for college on a basketball scholarship. But thirty years later, her high school English teacher from back home in Mississippi unexpectedly shows up in Sonya's new life teaching her teenage son and assigning that same senior project to his class. Sonya feels threatened by the only person who knows every sordid detail of her abusive childhood. She fears that the truth could destroy the life she has worked so hard to build and must decide whether to share the facts about her biological parents' abuse, alcoholism, and drug addiction with her own teenage children or risk alienating them if the truth is revealed by someone else.
Plot/Idea: 8 out of 10
Originality: 8 out of 10
Prose: 8 out of 10
Character/Execution: 8 out of 10
Overall: 8.00 out of 10
Assessment:
Plot/Idea: Sonya Taylor believes she has put her traumatic childhood behind her—until her high school English teacher, aware of her secrets thanks to a senior writing assignment, resurfaces. Ramsey's plot is carefully constructed and unfolds naturally, gradually exposing Sonya's upbringing and illustrating the power that comes with telling your story.
Prose: The prose is clear and readable, and Ramsey's delivery is compelling, transporting readers into the narrative right from the beginning.
Originality: Escaping Hell is unique in its construction of individual narratives that interlace within the bigger novel, and Ramsey skillfully shares key information on both Sonya's upbringing and her son's thoughts and emotions that bring their stories to life.
Character/Execution: This is a character-driven story, and the main characters are fully fleshed out and complex. Sonya's complicated relationship with her past, and how it plays out in her role as a mother, stands out as particularly well done.
Date Submitted: August 26, 2024
