I really enjoyed the story and found it memorable, although the details are hazy I can still remember the characters and main plot although I read it back in 2006 when I originally received it. I really like Arly as a character, it was painful to how mistreated and how naive she was at the beginning of the book but it was wonderful to read as she grew stronger. I also liked the fact that she was not portrayed as a typical teenage mother - she is not careless because she is young but she makes mistakes because she truly believes they are the right thing to do and she doesn't have too many regrets. She really believes she loves Dillon but in the end she comes to realise that Annie's love for her and her love for Desiree are so much stronger than her original love for him. ( )

Ridiculous romance between a 14-year-old and an inmate. Worst poetry ever. ( )

Despite portentous foreshadowing, Mitchard second novel never achieves the dramatic momentum and the emotional immediacy of her acclaimed fiction debut, The Deep End of the Ocean. But her depiction of two female protagonists is so large-hearted and wise that readers undoubtedly will be engrossed in their story. At 14, Arlington "Arley" Mowbray is a sensitive, conscientious and atypical teenager in a small, tacky South Texas town. She writes poetry, for one thing, and, instead of dating boys, she is a virtual slave to her hard-as-nails mother, whose lack of maternal instincts is shocking. When love-starved Arley begins corresponding with 23-year-old Dillon Thomas LeGrande, in jail for armed robbery, she is seduced by the poetry he writes and, with the reluctant help of public defender Annie Singer, gains permission to marry him. Soon, protective Annie takes a pregnant Arley into her home and heart, complicating her own relationship with her fiance, a death-row lawyer. Eventually, Dillon's true nature as a psychopath erupts, putting Arley and others in mortal danger. Mitchard's facility with intertwining plot lines results in a surprise-packed conclusion (with perhaps one surprise too many). Her depiction of the dizzy rapture of first love, and her insights into the maternal bond (Arley's with her infant daughter; Annie's with Arley, her surrogate daughter) are deeply affecting. Yet readers will find a troubling credibility problem. That studious Arley can transcend her culturally bereft upbringing is at least plausible, but it is unlikely that bad-boy Dillon would have the sensibility, background or vocabulary to create the poems attributed to him (actually written by Mitchard's friend, poet Sharron Singleton). Since so much of the plot hinges on Dillon's gift for poetry, the reader is keenly aware of this major flaw. (Publisher's Weekly)

I loved Mitchard's first book, The Deep End of the Ocean, so I was looking forward to reading this one. I didn't think it was as compelling. The writing is excellent and the story is fun, but you know from the beginning what the major dramatic moment is. Also, there is an epilogue that ties the pices together - therefore, she shows me, rather than tells me.

The two main characters are Annie and Arly. Annie is 39 and has been living with Stuart for ten years. He wanted to get married but she did not, although she did want to have a baby. Annie and Stuart are both attorneys. He defends people on death row. She defends women and children.

Arly is 14 and has married Dillon LeGrande who is more than twice her age and in prison for robbing a gas station and shooting a man. She met him through her friend's sister, Connie, who was corresponding with Kevin, Dillon's brother. They wrote for three months, she visited him once and then they married. Arly has come to see Annie because she wants a conjugal visit with her husband. Arly gets pregnant and before the baby is born, Dillon breaks out of prison and kills a man. ( )

2e; € 4,00; van Anneke; Bijenkorf Amsterdam; 04.04.03