Forget our current love of true crime; it was around the turn of the millennium that we were truly sick and twisted. Back then, the biggest trend in non-fiction was “misery lit”, as readers young and old binged on stories of abuse. We were initiated into this bleak era by the viral 1995 publication of A Child Called “It”, Dave Pelzer’s childhood memoir of sadistic abuse at the hands of his narcissistic alcoholic mother. Pelzer continued to pump out many follow-ups alongside a host of copycats – all grouped together on a shelf in Waterstones ominously labelled “Painful Lives”.