How long does it take to read Daddy's Girl?
Charlotte Vale Allen
Daddy's Girl by Charlotte Vale Allen takes about 4 hours 45 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 4 hours 45 minutes
A weekend read
First published 1980. 259 pages, about 71,225 words.
10 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 7 hours 55 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 4 hours 45 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 2 hours 58 minutes |
The page count is the median across 13 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
After I had been through many versions of the manuscript (written over almost a decade) I decided that for this book to have validity it would be necessary not only to show the past but also to give a picture of the present-illustrating how the events of my childhood affected me at the time, as well as later in life as an adult and a parent. Given that I wrote the book in the first place as a document that I hoped would be useful to others who'd suffered abuse and also to professionals, I felt it was very important to present detailed portraits of the child I was and the woman I grew to be (in large measure as a result of trying to cope with the long-term effects of the abuse.) As well, I thought it was vital to illustrate how fallout from the abuse can be felt down through the generations, if one fails to exercise awareness and caution. So the book weaves back and forth between past and present (the present being 1979, when the final version was completed). I also had to decide at the very start whether I was going to dole out snippets of truth or be completely truthful and address the issue as fully as I was able. There seemed no point to writing an autobiographical account of incest if I was going to be anything less than completely truthful. It was not difficult to tell the truth, nor was the writing of the book a cathartic experience, as many have imagined it to be. The fact is that I had long-since confronted my personal demons and had managed to relegate the past to the past-something exceedingly difficult for many victims of any/all forms of abuse to do. A few years ago in correcting the page proofs of a new British edition of the book, I reread DADDY'S GIRL, and was gratified by what I'd written. (Often, with my novels, I am not at all happy when I reread them.) I think that as an author I have little, if any, objectivity about my work once it's completed and so am not necessarily a good judge of it. But I am proud of DADDY'S GIRL. Since its publication in…
Subjects: Incest, Biography, Child sexual abuse, Canadian Authors, Canadian Women authors
