12 Heartbreaking and Powerful Books On Domestic Abuse

This book is a great eye-opener for people seeking to learn more about domestic abuse. It doesn’t shy away from uncomfortable topics and questions. It deals with asking things like why and how society creates abusers and why they can’t seem to protect its victims. It also delves into the depths of the culture and how power and gender plays into normalising abuse.

This book encourages self-confidence, self-image, and healing. The book is holistic in it’s approach to help women looking to heal their minds and bodies. The book also helps women in the processing of identifying their traumatic experience as abuse, which is often kept in the shadows and not openly discussed. The best part about the workbook is the assignments that can be worked on between therapy sessions, to enhance treatment.

This is a far-reaching and highly accessible book for working with young children exposed to trauma. While geared towards providers, the book shed light on working with individuals who are perpetrators of abuse and violence to help them consider the impact she or he has on others. This book helps with the process of changing families and breaking the cycle of violence.

Domestic abuse victims will find inspiration in the true story of a young artist named Ruth, an abused daughter of a violent narcissist, an enabling mother and abusive siblings who perpetuate a legacy of violence perniciously passed down through generations. Underneath it all lies a horrific secret, buried for decades. Ruth’s redeeming strength and inner vision help her to overcome the effects of being stymied at every turn by men who seek to maintain power over her. This novel is used by therapists for adult children of abused children.

Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men is a book focused on understanding the abuser. Victims of domestic violence often believe that they deserve abuse because of gaslighting, manipulation, or other forms of control. This is one of the sad consequences that keep victims from seeking help. However, this book seeks to direct the attention back to the source of the problem—the abuser. Lundy Bancroft’s book helps women understand patterns of abuse and find the confidence to flee abusive situations.

This is a powerful, first-hand account of sexual abuse caused by the author’s ex-husband, who was a state police officer. Twelve years of enduring domestic violence at its absolute worst. Constant abuse, control, manipulation, and threats. Sadistic sexual deviance and sexual violence. It was only going to end one way: someone would die in our bed and someone would go to prison for murder. This is my story about domestic violence, resilience, reckoning and survival.

Playing Dead is such an important title when discussing abuse because it really shows the progression. Faison Ross details the relationship from the beginning, noting small changes along the way that were signs of what was to come. The author also includes her numerous legal steps to keep her abusive husband away: injuctions, police warnings, and even arrest. Despite these efforts, he continues to become moew abusive. One fateful Monday morning, Chris kidnapped Monique in front of her children and drove off on a nightmarish car ride that involved car crashes and rape. He mercilessly beat her on the head with a shovel and abandoned her brutalized body in the woods in the rain. He left, presuming she was dead…but was she?

Not all survivors of domestic violence can afford or have access to the trauma-focused therapy needed to recover from their experiences. This book can be the resource they need to begin their healing journey on their own. The chapters on guilt are particularly useful and empowering.

Too often the discussion of domestic violence focuses on physical assault missing entirely the patterns of power and control which make it so incredibly harmful. In Coercive Control, Evan Stark lays out the insidious nature of abuse and the ways in which power is wielded without ever having to resort to physical violence. To truly understand domestic violence, one has to grasp the role of coercive control.

There is a myth in our society that abuse stops once the relationship ends. This ignores the ways that abusive partners utilize the family court system to continue to abuse and to maintain contact, and power and control over a former partner. Lisa Fischel-Wolovick exposes bias and problems with the courts’ approach to custody when there is a history of domestic violence in the relationship. She expertly discusses the ongoing trauma inflicted on both survivors and their children by both the perpetrating parent and the complicit family court professionals.

After leaving abusive relationship, survivors are forced to navigate the stigma that is attached to having been abused. This book, using direct quotes from survivors, provides insight into the experience of domestic violence, the impact of societal and systemic stigma and the ways in which survivors rise and overcome.

The title says it all. It is a book about an abusive relationship and domestic violence against women in rural areas. These issues are increasing nowadays, making this book a great help to people who are experiencing it. This book also tackles all the hardships a woman who had undergone violence experiences when she decides to leave the abusive relationship.