We will continue to work with the police, justice system and Scottish Government to improve access to justice for survivors.

This is a topic that requires deeper discussion, and the author had a golden opportunity to discuss other ways parents behave, like the perumthachan complex (jealousy of parents to successful children). It took me a long time to realize that the feeling of unease my mother experienced in my own house was no different from what I had felt as a teenager when I was introduced to people "a cut above us. Ernaux’s mother made it possible for her to go to university which is wonderful and quite a sacrifice.

Yes, it would have benefited from a more in-depth analysis of her mother's character, but we must remember that it was written in the immediate (and topsy-turvy) aftermath of her mother's death. The didn’t talk about feelings and her mother seems to have been afraid all the time about what others thought.

The fact that it has just 104 pages and we can finish reading it within two hours makes it much more easier for me to recommend it. Upon her mother's death from Alzheimers, Ernaux embarks on a daunting journey back through time, as she seeks to "capture the real woman, the one who existed independently from me, born on the outskirts of a small Normandy town, and who died in the geriatric ward of a hospital in the suburbs of Paris.She skipped school and took a job in a factory, where she felt 'civilised compared to the barbarians.