This book had been sitting on my kindle for a while, and I was in the mood for an edgier read. This was a compelling read and showed what someone would do for the family, even take the rap for murder. When Mary was nine years old, she and her mother were babysitting their neighbor's daughter, and the baby died. Mary was convicted and sentenced to prison life. Allegedly follows Mary's life through juvie to a female youth prison home. During her time, she has always stood by the fact that she didn't kill the child and that if she keeps her mouth shut, it will help her survive. During her time, she falls pregnant and now with her baby at risk of being taken away from her; she wants the truth after all these years to come out. Mary hires a lawyer who helps file motions and will begin a journey of unraveling the truth and facing her past, including parts that she has blanked out. Allegedly was quite a compelling and emotional read and also showed the aspects of racism between whites and blacks and the conviction rates. This is the perfect read for fans of Angie Thomas's THUG and those who are in the mood for a White Vs. Black type novel.

Love, love, love this book! I had heard a lot of wonderful things about Allegedly so decided to pick it up after the initial hype died down so I could form my own opinion and my gosh, was this book powerful. A painfully raw story that pulls at. your heartstrings throughout it's entirety, it absolutely is a must read.

“Hard to celebrate the day you were born when everybody seems to wish you were never born at all.”

This book made me cry so many times, it also made me feel sick and made me laugh - all within 400 pages. That’s why I’m giving it 5 stars.

It feels weird giving this kind of book 5 stars considering most of the characters were insufferable, the book is about a child being murdered, and Mary (who you can’t help but love) has had a terrible upbringing. But from the first page I didn’t want to stop reading and just before I got to the end of the book, more information was revealed which flipped the story around completely, leaving me bewildered.

If that doesn’t convince you to pick up the book I’m just going to leave you with a little quote I highlighted during my read. “I’d kill for something- anything-new to read. But I’d never say that out loud. I’m a killer after all; they’d probably think I’d really do it. Figures of speech are luxuries convicted murderers are not allowed to have.”

This book was an incredible read. It was disturbing, dark, fascinating, and incredibly emotional. By the end of it I felt exhausted because of the tumble of emotions that this book brought out. It's thought-provoking, and would lead to interesting discussions - a while after reading it I'm still thinking about it.

I'm not sure the book is for everyone - it's very dark - but I do think it is an important read, so I would recommend it to everyone! This book would be worthy of your time for sure.

This is one tough book to review.

Let me just open this by saying that for a debut this is impressive. Tiffany D. Jackson is an author to watch and I will certainly be keen to pick up any future work by her.

This book is excellently written. So many lines in stray places that I had to pause and appreciate. The characterisation is super strong, the dialogue is solid – it feels real without being degrading or a caricature. I sped through this read, too, because it’s an easy to read book even if the material is not - the pacing is strangely compelling.

Jackson also handles the material and themes well. Make no mistake this is a grim read, but Mary’s voice, motivations and actions keep you hoping she’ll win. It takes a lot of skill to bring that out for a character such as Mary, and even more to make her situation not feel hopeless and awful all the time. Most of the time, sure, but not all the time.

So why the confused and delayed review. Why the on-the-fence star-rating?

Without spoilers: I had big issues with the ending. Huge, book-throwing issues with the ending. Yell-out-loud-and-confuse-those-I-live-with levels of issues.

I have no issue with unreliable narrators or twisty endings and at no point in this book was I expecting a nice tied-up ending. The whole way through I was second-guessing what I knew about Mary and the case and what I was being told. It was part of what made the book so good to read. I wanted to figure it out and my brain kept scrabbling at the story trying to unlock it.

The thing is, though, for an ending – any ending – to be good for me it needs to satisfy two criteria. It needs to be both surprising and inevitable. For a twist ending that means I need to feel that “of course!” moment and be wowed at how I missed it.

The ending here went hard the other way for me. I would argue it severely undermined a lot of what has been making the book excellent up to that point. I found that incredibly cheap and frustrating as a reader.

However.

This is the part where I should remind you about the subjectivity of reviewing. Lots of people have loved this book and found the ending to be OK or even fascinating, resonant and appropriate. And, despite my issues with the ending, I don’t regret reading this book and the characters and feel of it are going to stick with me for a long time. I still liked it overall as a book. If you’re looking for a compelling, heavy-issues read this should still be a really strong contender in your list.