This was really good - a book a bit in the Oliver Sacks' style of one-anecdote-per-chapter, each focusing on a case when severe abuse (often from neglect rather than a more active abuse) on a child led to catastrophic consequences to their development and behaviors as an adult. Each of the cases were very interesting. I did get the slight impression that Perry had a "when all you have is a hammer, everything is a nail" mentality though. I mean, it's his book, so it makes sense that the examples he used here were cherry picked as the clearest and most compelling, but he very much struck me a bit as though he though all personality disorders and/or deviant behavior stem from early childhood abuse. In terms of "nature vs nurture", he leans super hard on the nurture. When doing an evaluation (in the book), he never really thinks about running a cat scan, or inquiring about other genetic or physical predispositions. I found this odd, but again, his book. Overall, super interesting and a great companion to Sacks.

One tidbit that stuck with me: the resting heartrate of the Waco Devidian Children was 160! Wow.