Boa: Aruba In The Stranglehold

by Rita Zecher

After working for years as a child psychiatrist in The Hague, Netherlands, Rita Zecher moves to Aruba, a small island in the Dutch Caribbean. Rita and her two youngest children embark on a journey to start a new life. As a five-lingual psychiatrist, and Aruba’s only child psychiatrist, Rita connects to the hearts of the people of all backgrounds. But when abused children seek out her help, Rita gets entangled with their perpetrators, their lawyers, and a failing justice system. Rita must now face the dark side of paradise. Aruba’s corrupted justice system doesn’t protect abused children, so Rita must fight for their rights, for the children who have lost their lives, dignity, and souls to child abuse. Rita must now become a voice to their silent cries.

250 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 18, 2013

Reviews

[Tim Elston · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book could have used some professional editing or ghost writing. The author's first language is not English, and that was evident in the many syntactic problems throughout the book. More critically, the narrative was not well conceived; it seemed to be three-quarters about her personal struggles in Aruba and one-quarter about the child support system there. Half-way through the book I was still wondering whether the narrative would pick up the issue of child abuse in more than a passing way. Unusually, the author managed to present her own character in an unsympathetic light, leaving me to wonder who was more problematic, she or the colleagues and authorities with whom she had problems. In the end, I tilted toward a belief that there are real, systemic problems with Aruba's child care system, but I also came away with an impression that the author's brusque demeanor may have contributed to some of the incidents she experienced professionally. That's not to say that there were not hints that she had better social skills than what she let on in the narrative, but the narrative, for me at least, generated suspicion and a reserve of judgment about what the cause of some of the problems was. Despite these suspicions, and perhaps because of them, the book did feel more like real life than polished memoir, and I have to give the author credit for laying herself out there as she experienced and processed her brief trials in Aruba.

[Tim Elston · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book would have benefited from professional editing or ghost writing. The author's first language is not English, and that was evident in the many syntactic problems throughout the book. More critically, the narrative was not well conceived; it seemed to be three-quarters about her personal struggles with Aruba and one-quarter about the child support system there. Half-way through the book I was still wondering whether the narrative would pick up the issue of child abuse in a more substantial way than occasional, haphazard comments. Unusually, the author managed to present her own character in an unsympathetic light, leaving me to wonder who was more problematic, she or the colleagues and authorities with whom she had problems. In the end, I tilted toward a belief that there are real, systemic problems in Aruba, but I also came away with an impression that the author's brusque demeanor may have contributed to some of the incidents she experienced professionally. That is not to say that there were not hints that she had better social skills than what she let on in the narrative, but the book, for me at least, generated some suspicion and a reserve of judgment about what the cause of some of the problems were. Despite its many weaknesses, and perhaps because of them, the book did feel more like real life than polished memoirs usually do, and I have to give the author credit for being brave, or oblivious, enough to make this exposé public.