Susan Mihalic

The jacket sums it up nicely: This book is "at the intersection of a commercial page-turner and urgent survivor story." My own spin on that is it's a story about child abuse that's a little too horny for my comfort. It was indeed a book I didn't want to put down, and I credit the straightforward prose for that, along with my desire to see how it ends in relation to her father. In terms of how it tackles abuse and the narrator's vocabulary regarding it (as well as how the father's "comeuppance" was treated), I'm perplexed. Abuse survivors do have complicated relationships with their abusers, and as one of them I know, but often we don't use terms that glorify situations, especially sexual ones. Every survivor is different, though, so who knows. All in all, this read like a titillating young adult novel with adult content. I would not say this is high lit but I also think it knows what it is and what it's marketed as. Go in expecting a sensationalized, dark story of child abuse, along with a YA love story — neither of which are as realistic as literature that deals with similar topics. If you're looking for a read like this that's embedded with realism, try My Dark Vanessa.… (more)