“I want someone to tell me what to do. I want someone to fix me. Or maybe I want to go to sleep and not wake up. I don’t know. I just know I can’t stay like this.”
5/5 stars!
Very happy to be a part of this blog tour! Hopefully y’all will check out some of the other blogs on the rest of the tour!
First off, while I found this book heart-breakingly amazing, it’s also a story that deals with pretty dark topics. I’ve included some trigger warnings in the above graphic for those of you who feel like you might react badly to some of the content in the book. Just take care of yourself and remember that this is a book about hope.
This book is about a girl named Alexa Grace, who was until recently, living in a motel among many other women trafficked by the same man,, Mitch. When the police find her, she’s convinced she has no home to go back to and no one left in the world to care for her. When her Aunt steps up as her caregiver, she starts to realize that there may be some hope left for her. But between the cruelties of her high school peers and the weight of the developing police investigation into Mitch, she’s beginning to wonder if her new life and support is enough.
So I read this book over the course of a few hours, completely enveloped by this story. I was in a bit of a book funk and I thought maybe I’d read a few good pages to just see what it was about. Basically, I just didn’t put it down even when the tears started rolling.
I found Alex to be a super compelling character. She’s super defensive at the beginning of the book and really learns to be vulnerable with others without losing too much of herself in the process. I was a bit confused with some of her dialogue, like the evolution of how she speaks, but it wasn’t anything that hindered my enjoyment of the book. I loved how complicated she was, her humor and smiles amidst all her barbs and cynicism.
One of my favorite parts of the book was seeing Alex interact with her new world. The things that made her nervous or didn’t because of the life she’s lived. I loved how much the book explored her relationships within her new support system. How it stressed the importance of one and the different ways to support someone whose gone through a traumatizing experience. I don’t think there’s one right way to be a friend or ally so I really loved the range of people in the book.
The book really put effort into showing how this issue affects women, on every side of it. Girls who are trafficked, girls who do the trafficking, mothers of all kinds, and women police officers fighting these kinds of crimes. I almost wish the book had included more on boys who are abused as well, but I definitely understand what the author was trying to do.
I also really loved how the book goes into the role of the internet with human trafficking. Obviously, human trafficking has been around a lot longer than the internet, but the internet has shaped how everything is done today. And it’s newness just makes it that much harder to prosecute. The book really analyses the particular struggle with finding these sites and getting then taken down. It was definitely hard to think and read about for me, but ultimately, I feel like I learned quite a bit. The author also includes resources to learn more about this in an author’s note along other pieces of information.
TL;DR: This is a very inspirational, but difficult book about hope amidst seeing the worst of the world. It’s heart-breaking and you will cry, but it’s a great read.
E-galley provided by Wednesday Books in exchange for an honest review. All quotations and opinions are based off an uncorrected proof.
Paperback Wishes 