a star rating for my experience with this book would be reductive. i did not enjoy most of this book, although the narrator did a great job of telling the story. sandra, the titular trauma cleaner, has been through a lot of trauma in her life, so much so that she doesn't remember some of it. however, the author goes through the tedious job of finding out each and every horrendous event that has happened to this person, her friend, and tells it in as much detail as possible. it is difficult to describe how excruciating it is to get through a book so full of pain and yet so cold and fragmented at the same time. 

many reviews i've seen also say that they were put off by the author's gushing for the subject. i noticed this, and i, too, was put off. until the end, when i realised: if this were my friend i was writing about, if i had the luck to write a book about my courageous, amazing friend who has been through so much and deserves such publicity, i would publicly gush too. i would talk about how incredible my friend was for surviving so much, for succeeding despite the incredible odds against her, and for continuing to give so much back to the world.  sandra is not a perfectly likable person. she's human, like all of us, and she's bound to have a few faults. but she has been through things no person should go through, and has come out of it relatively okay. good, even. so i'll excuse a bit of gushing on the author's part. i would 100% do the same myself.