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A review by tobyyy
Death of the demon by Anne Holt
2.0
I have to collect my thoughts for this review... this was a social justice awareness tale combined with a murder mystery and I gotta say, a lot of it just didn’t work for me.
First — I work with kids like Olav, who had been diagnosed with MBD, minimal brain dysfunction (dating this novel; this is now known as the ubiquitous ADHD). Throughout the book, Olav’s mother interjected flashbacks of raising Olav and always knowing that he was “different.”
However, Olav presents as not just having ADHD but also potentially having narcissistic personality disorder (though this can’t be diagnosed until later in teen years/early adulthood). That was never made very clear, however, but questions about it were raised, by asking if he was capable of love and affection as well as empathy... the lack of which are NOT hallmarks of ADHD.
And in the mother’s flashbacks (which added an element to the story that helped to clarify the purpose of Olav’s narrative), she discussed how children’s services were called in and how they told her she wasn’t parenting appropriately. I would’ve told her the exact same thing were I her therapist, though... never telling your child no, never enforcing boundaries — that’s not appropriate or effective parenting. It may seem to be fine when they’re little but look out when they’re 8 or 9+ and are still aggressive when they don’t get their way... and now can actually do significant damage.
So she grated on me a little.
First — I work with kids like Olav, who had been diagnosed with MBD, minimal brain dysfunction (dating this novel; this is now known as the ubiquitous ADHD). Throughout the book, Olav’s mother interjected flashbacks of raising Olav and always knowing that he was “different.”
However, Olav presents as not just having ADHD but also potentially having narcissistic personality disorder (though this can’t be diagnosed until later in teen years/early adulthood). That was never made very clear, however, but questions about it were raised, by asking if he was capable of love and affection as well as empathy... the lack of which are NOT hallmarks of ADHD.
And in the mother’s flashbacks (which added an element to the story that helped to clarify the purpose of Olav’s narrative), she discussed how children’s services were called in and how they told her she wasn’t parenting appropriately. I would’ve told her the exact same thing were I her therapist, though... never telling your child no, never enforcing boundaries — that’s not appropriate or effective parenting. It may seem to be fine when they’re little but look out when they’re 8 or 9+ and are still aggressive when they don’t get their way... and now can actually do significant damage.
So she grated on me a little.