This was going to be a five star book until literally ten pages before the end. The ending lost this book a star. I can totally see what the author was trying to do, but for me it didn't work and it erased some of the excellent messages the author was trying to get across.
However, we are still left with a four star book, which is pretty good going. Bad ending notwithstanding, what we have is a treatise on the failings of the criminal justice and social care systems, racism, parental responsibility and mental health. All wrapped around a graphic, twisted drama with some truly abhorrent characters.
Mary Addison killed a baby.
Allegedly.
For seven years she has been processed through the system as a child murderer and there has been no point in setting the record straight. Until now. Because now Mary is pregnant herself and risks having her baby taken away from her. After all, there's no way social services will let a convicted baby killer raise her own child.
Mary's relationships with literally everyone else in this book were completely twisted, but I guess that's what you get when you spend your adolescence in solitary confinement. Her relationship with her boyfriend was kind of creepy (she is fifteen; he is eighteen. That's statutory rape) but it kept me turning the pages.
I finished this book in just over a day, which is pretty quick, even for me. It is ghastly, gory, shocking and twisted and, aside from the jarring ending, I really enjoyed it.