A beautiful family broken. An anguished mother. A quest for revenge. Domestic drama that brings you into the heart of a tragedy.
I really enjoyed this book and the characters were very well-developed and realistic. The narrative is told from several points of view, and each brings a different perception to all of the events that transpired. I don't get this hating on Ellen; I felt mostly sympathy and pity for her and I don't think you can judge her until you have experienced and felt what she went through. Would most of us make the same choices she did -- probably not -- but the quest for revenge is as old as time and the grief of losing a child can't be quantified.
The thing that always gets me in these family dramas is how pitiful the parenting seems to be. I don't know any teen parent that would allow all this running around, drinking, and drug use in their child when said child is still in school and living in the home. Are people really this permissive?
More so -- the concept of the bad friend. The kid who incites the others to get into trouble, flaunt parental authority, experiment with dangerous drugs. What is a parent to do with this negative influencer? And what makes others fall in with this sort of kid instead of staying outside of it?
At the end of the day, a child is dead and the person who allegedly caused it won't or can't give a full accounting. The punishment is minimal and the parents can't accept it. Ellen, the mother, wants more. She tries to put some serious plans in motion to extract her pound of flesh -- she is not able to even think about anything else as long as he is still alive and living his best life.
The writing and the way the story is told was engaging and I was unable to put the book down until I'd finished in a single sitting. Whether or not you like Ellen or agree with what she did, the theme begs the question of what does pain make a person do.
Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for this e-book ARC to read, review, and recommend.
This is a standalone and is not part of any series.
Genre - domestic drama, tragedy, revenge
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