Author: Kristine Scarrow
Publisher: Dundern
Pub Date: Sep 29 2014
Source: Netgalley
Andy Burton knows a thing or two about survival. Since she was removed from her mother's home and placed in foster care when she was nine, she's had to deal with abuse, hunger, and homelessness. But now that she's eighteen, she's about to leave Haywood House, the group home for girls where she's lived for the past four years, and the closest thing to a real home she's ever known. Will Andy be able to carve out a better life for herself and find the happiness she is searching for?
3 Stars
Andy was handed nothing but bad cards in life, it started
with her mother. Instead of loving her she blamed Andy for all her problems.
From then on things only got worse and worse for her.
The only huge problem I had with this book how short it was.
It talked about a lot of serious issues like Abuse, Rape, Self-Injury etc. but
it made them seem shallow and things that could be erased with a boyfriend. Even though the point of the story was that
she was able to overcome her past and move on, it didn't feel like she dealt
with anything. Instead she just pushed it away for later.
She talks about how she used to suffer from self-injury, but
it never talked about how or why she stopped, whether she got help or just
stopped.
This book was written as a diary and therefore we had a lot
of character development with the Andy, but the rest of the characters were
seen from a narrow point of view
For example something happens tragic and huge happens to a character
but we are never
A: Told exactly what happens
B: Seen what she thought about it.
I feel like it would have been an even better book if it was
longer or at least deeper and we felt more of what the MC felt.
Since this is a really short review here are a few of my
favorite quotes:
“We’re expected to just step into place in this new environment
and its rules like puppets or robots, participating, going through motions.
Emotions get buried. Eventually you get to feeling numb, dead inside before we
even come. That’s more like my story. But for me, coming here felt like
salvation.”
“She catches my eye my eye and pulls her sleeves down, but
it’s too late. I’ve seen the cuts and the scabs. I’ve seen the damage. I
understand the feelings released through each of those cuts. I understand the
escape it has given her, and yet it breaks my heart to the marks mottling in
her arms.”
“We are ‘Throwaway girls’ kids that are too old to be cute
and cuddled, too set in our ways, and too old to be saved because the damage
has already been done. But to each other, We’re sponges, soaking up every bit
of love and praise we can find. “
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