The book is interesting but sad. It can easily brings tears to the eyes. The abuse the main character suffers in the name of discipline is unbearable. The book follows the life of Kea, short for Kealeboga, from her childhood to early adulthood. It is written in a somewhat flashback style and starts with the adult Kea waking up from under a tree in a place where she used to take solace after running from her troubled childhood. In particular, she dreaded her mother who seemed to have hatred for her rather than love.
The scene brings back painful memories for Kea and the author wades through a chronology of her troubled childhood. The reader is introduced to the seven-year-old Kea, who up until then had been staying with her grandmother. Even though she had never been told, she knew that the grandmother she called mother was not her real mother. On the day Kea's mother Betty arrives at the village, her grandmother asks jokingly: "Who is that". After a few moments of doubt Kea responds: "I know who she is...she is my mother". The grandmother hits back in a friendly tone. "Ehee! Now I see you want to cheat me, I have been keeping you in my house, feeding you, taking good care of you, now you see a total stranger and call her your mother," she said with a smile (page 14).
