Compost Happens: Growing a Flourishing Life After Childhood Abuse

By: Diana Morgan Dean
Publisher: Windsor River Press
Publication Date: April 8, 2025
ISBN: 979-8991324106
Reviewed by: Diana Coyle
Review Date: April 2, 2025

When thirteen-year-old Diana loses her mother in a car accident that was caused by her father’s road rage, she must now step in and be a mother figure to her four younger siblings in Compost Happens: Growing a Flourishing Life After Childhood Abuse by Diana Morgan Dean.

As if stepping into a mothering role wasn’t enough for Diana to endure, her father also mentally, emotionally and sexually abused her, even when her mother was alive. Soon after her mom died, her father began bringing home numerous women, a few being way too young for him to even have relations with, but that didn’t stop him from engaging in this destructive behavior. Eventually, he brought home an older woman named Ingrid. She was so hostile that she convinced him to give his kids away to people that were willing to take them.

Many years and plenty of emotional heartache later, all of the siblings were living in different places and separated from each other. It became so intolerable that they even stopped associating with their own siblings. Diana’s emotional wounds tainted every aspect of her life. She lacked self-respect and deemed herself not worthy of anything. Due to the years of torment, she entered into one failed relationship after another. The wounds she carried decades later took plenty of therapy and soul searching for her to finally accept who she was and try to find some happiness in her life. Was she ever able to find happiness and peace within herself? Did she ever confront her father over all those years of abuse?

This story will break readers’ hearts as they read about the years of torture Diana and her siblings endured. As if it wasn’t hard enough trying to adjust to their mother being taken from them while they were all young children, now add to it all the years of physical, mental and sexual abuse, and you have the perfect combination of these children growing up in an unhealthy environment. Readers will sympathize with Diana and her siblings as they all endure emotional and physical trauma at the hands of their father. Not to mention, when he brought a new female home, that person thought it was fine to abuse the children as well. All this abuse culminated into emotional problems for each one of them.

As Diana was growing up and jumping from one relationship into another, readers can’t help but feel intense empathy for her. The constant search for someone to nurture her because of the lack of nurturing she was exposed to growing up led to a few marriages failing throughout her adult years. Each marriage seemed the perfect fit at the time, but would quickly fall apart because she lacked a blueprint for nurture that was needed in order to have a healthy relationship. These failed marriages only added to the already broken past she had experienced throughout her life. Readers will hope that by the end of her story, Diana will find the peace she has been looking for throughout the years, so she can begin her journey towards healing and healthy interpersonal relationships.

Quill says: If you are looking for an inspiring story with plenty of emotions mixed within the pages, then look no further. In Compost Happens: Growing a Flourishing Life After Childhood Abuse by Diana Morgan Dean, you’ll find yourself crying, laughing and praying that Diana will finally find peace within her own heart to move on with her life.

For more information about Compost Happens: Growing a Flourishing Life After Childhood Abuse, please visit the author’s website at: dianamorgandean.com.