this book is a beautiful haunting work.
a great coming of age that I think pushes the boundaries.
this writer and book needs more attention

Thank you net galley for the opportunity to read and review this book but unfortunately I could not get into this book and did end up DNFing at about 40%! I just did not feel for the characters or the story.

2.5 stars
***TRIGGER WARNING***
suicide, domestic abuse

This was kind of disappointing. I think the concept and themes discussed in the story were compelling, but lacked execution. Without giving away any spoilers, I felt the author made parts of the last quarter of the book a big cop out. Also, the biggest part of the climax didn't hit until 93% into the book, and then everything was rushed until the end. I would have liked to have seen the aftermath instead of a summary of what happened.

I did think the author did a good job in how she portrayed PTSD through Anne's stutter and panic attacks. However, neither was ever treated or helped. She all of a sudden has a stutter and panic attacks that lead her to faint, wouldn't that lead someone to get her into therapy? She receives no help mentally until the end.

ARC was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Very depressing read about the lies we tell to the outside and ourselves. Sad read about domestic abuse. Thanks to Netgalley, the author and the publisher for the arc of this book in return for my honest review. Receiving the book in this manner had no bearing on this review.

REVIEW
As a “survivor” of domestic abuse myself I wanted to read and publicise this book because anything that gets people talking about a tricky subject such as this needs to be shouted about from the “treetops”.

The cover depicts an image of what I think must be Anne, the central character in the book. I love the vibrant purple colour of the cover it fits with the content of the book well. The genres I have seen listed for this book are, Teens & YA but I would add “social issues” to cover the abuse, racism, bullying, peer pressure and sexuality. Perhaps LGBT should also be added to the Teens, YA, and Social Issues.

There is a prologue for this book where Anne is in the “present” talking to a counsellor and then the rest of the book is being told from Anne’s point of view kind of like as if she is reading

The main character is Anne Mason and to the outside world she is a happy normal little child. She attends church with her parents every week, where they are a popular family and quite well off as her father, John Mason has his own business. Sadly, inside the home life is a different story for Anne, it is not the family bliss that the family project when at church. As the blurb says “behind the polished windows, Anne’s father brutally terrorizes her mother.” As Anne becomes of school age there is disagreement as to how she should be educated, her mother Martinique wants her to attend the local comprehensive, but John wants her to attend private school. In the end and after Martinique receiving a beating for her voicing her opinion, a compromise is found and Anne is to be home schooled. As John has his own business, he can afford to pay private tutors and also for Martinique to take Anne on trips to museums and galleries. Anne has always kept to herself what goes on in her home behind closed doors but accidentally slips and tells the young girl next door that her daddy hits her mummy. So, the next time the neighbours hear an argument they call the Police. Unfortunately, Martinique covers up for her husband and doesn’t tell the Police what is really going on. One evening John is beating his wife and he makes her go out with him in the car, leaving Anne alone in bed. When he returns, he is alone and tells Anne her mother has gone away and she probably won’t see her again. It’s not long after that John suggests Anne should stay with her Aunt Colette and her family. The book then covers Anne settling into her new situation, firstly attending school with her cousin Zoe and then later attending a boarding school.

The book states it is about domestic violence but to be honest it is so much more, it covers other difficult subjects such as bullying, peer pressure and sexuality. Anne the main character goes through the realisation that she likes girls not boys and the book covers her first crush and her first relationship and what that entails. There are relevant references to popular TV programmes, series, films and music too, such as Orange Is The New Black.

Some of the descriptions the author uses really help you visualise what they are explaining. For example, when telling the reader about Martinique about to receive a beating from her husband John. “She cowered in front of him, a rabbit against a hungry tiger.” Then a scene where Anne knows her father is becoming angry and the violence is about to start. “Usain Bolt had been dubbed the fastest man in the world. His sprints couldn’t have surpassed the speed of my heart as I sat next to my mum, who was gnawing away at her thumb.”

I will be honest at times it felt like the author was really trying to pack in as many issues as she could and I was worried it would become like someone preaching about what is right or wrong. I also felt a bit odd about the following reference “Teachers stood around the classroom, walking past us. My imagination ran away with me and I pictured them as Nazi soldiers assessing us at a concentration camp, ready to toss those of us who did badly into the gas chambers and bring those of us who did well in “for effective use.” It felt an over exaggeration and maybe some could see it as trivialising the Holocaust. Though I guess some teenagers do over embellish things they are going through. Having said all that I did read the whole book and found on the whole I quite enjoyed it.

My immediate thoughts upon finishing this book were that it was and unusual, unique book that covers so many issues. Not what I had initially expected from the book when I first read the blurb. So difficult to quantify a 'score' for this book. I feel it's worth more than a 3 but then when I compare it to some 4 star books I have read it just isn't quite a 4. Having said all that, I have enjoyed reading this book even though it kind of meandered off the route I expected it to follow. Honestly parts of it read like realistic journal/diary entries of a young girl, who goes through a heck of a lot!

To sum up I think this book would be a great addition to a school library, and to be read within classes as a conversation starter on abuse, race, bullying, peer pressure and sexuality too.

A heart-wrenching story of do not judge a book by it's cover motto. A wealthy dad and a loving mom is what the world sees, but behind shut doors is a world of abuse that will tear you apart. Prepare your heart and mind for this heavy read.

**I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review,

The truly hard things in life are difficult to read about. This book contained many of them. Growing up in an abusive household, Anne struggles to be herself. Going from homeschool to a boarding school does a lot to make her see who she really is. The subjects of domestic abuse, suicide, self harm, and depression are embedded in the book. This isn't a warm hearted book, it's full of the struggles of teenagers seen everywhere. However, it show all of these things in a way that shows strength. Anne could become anything, but she becomes strong in the face of all of the adversity and pain she goes through growing up.

The only struggle I had with the book was the writing at times. It felt very segmented and not always cohesive. I found myself lost in the timeline and at times the characters aren't developed enough to mature through their given issues. Many of the side characters felt like caricatures of real people. I wish there was a little more time to really delve into them. However, I would recommend this book if you like a female character who struggles with her sexuality, identity, connections with other people, and rising from difficult circumstances.

Representation: Anne (main character) is black and lesbian and she has a stress-induced stutter, Simone (side character) is bisexual, Karen (side character) is lesbian. Anne’s family are all black (with a white father).

Content warnings: Domestic violence, domestic abuse, alcoholism, drug usage, panic attacks, bullying, underage drinking, underage sex (the characters are 13 and 14 respectively), forced sexual consent (non-descriptive), homophobia, homophobic language, slurs, slut shaming, depression, sexism, self-harm mentions, suicide (non-graphic).

!!This is not a spoiler free review!!

I didn’t realise before requesting an ARC for this book from Net Galley that it’s already out. It’s weird how that works, but hey, I got to read a book that sounded really interesting from the description for free, so I’m all good.

Anne’s story starts when she’s a little girl, experiencing her father abuse her mother. Her father was in his mid to late thirties when he meets Anne’s mother, who is just eighteen years old. Big red flags right there for me. Things seem great at first – he’s a hard worker, they have a lot of money, and a nice house. But Anne’s father is an abusive man. He hits his wife and belittles her, and shames her for existing, throwing bible quotes at her to get her to submit to him “like a good woman should”. That makes me want to vomit, but I understand it for the purpose of the story.

Because Anne’s parents couldn’t come to an acceptable agreement to where Anne should go to school, it’s decided that she will be home-schooled and will have tutors come in and teach her the things she needs to know at a curriculum level. Anne’s mum takes her out into London a lot – to museums, to see plays on the West End, and experience as much as she can outside of the house as well.

Anne soon realises that things aren’t right with her father beating her mother so she confides in a child neighbour, Lucy. When things get bad between Anne’s dad and mum, Lucy’s own parents call the police, but Anne’s father is able to sweet talk them into thinking nothing is wrong. Lucy’s family move away shortly after this.

One night, things are particularly bad, and Anne runs to her room, but she can still hear her father beating her mother. Then nothing. Anne’s dad comes home hours and hours later and says that her mum “left” and that she’ll probably never see her again.

Soon after this, Anne is shipped off to her Aunt Collette’s house – an aunt she didn’t even know existed. She has cousins she’s never met, and has to go to day school like all of the other students. It’s a tough adjustment for Anne, who has never had to conform to school rules, and who is thirteen years old.

After a while at her cousin, Zoe’s school, Anne decides that she wants to go to the boarding school her older cousin, Patrice, goes to. He likes being at boarding school, and Anne thinks that she’d like it – it would feel more like being home schooled.

Anne thrives at the boarding school. She gains friends, a girlfriend, and has teachers that she really likes and looks up to.

*

There are bouts of bullying in the book – as Anne has a stutter, and she’s smarter than most of her peers, but she isn’t sure why she should be ashamed of it. This is also the first book that I have read where a character has a stress-induced stutter. It’s something that I have, and it was so cool to see it in a book character, too.

At the end of the book, it shows Anne as an eighteen year old and it feels like that eighteen year old has been narrating the story all along. Which makes sense because there were a few parts that felt like Anne should have been older than the fourteen years she was written as. It threw me off a few times, because I just can’t see thirteen and fourteen year olds acting and talking the way that Anne acted and talked, but I can see that of someone a fair few years older, like eighteen.

A lot of the time I felt like I was being told the story, rather than shown, which made me not enjoy parts of it as much.

This book is intense, and doesn’t shy away from tough topics like domestic abuse and violence, and the suicide of one of Anne’s friends.

There are a few throwaway comments from Simone about constantly wanting to die, and I feel like at 14, I do understand that Anne wasn’t going to go to the school Matron or a teacher, or anything, especially since she was dealing with a lot herself, but those were some massive red flags for me with Simone, and I feel like Anne should have attempted to do something.

What got me is that Anne was aware of Simone’s drinking alcohol during the day to get through one tough situation or another, and she still didn’t do anything about it.

When someone is as depressed as Simone is, it absolutely is hard to think that “I couldn’t change the outcome even if I had said something” which for this instance is wrong. I was really taken aback by Anne’s insistence that she couldn’t have done anything. And I get that putting that on a 14 year old who has already been through so much as Anne has is a lot, but she could have gone to a teacher, or the school Matron because Simone was clearly crying out for help and didn’t get it.

There were times where Anne thought that she would go and seek help for Simone, but ultimately decided to let Simone handle it on her own, and that made me really sad.

So that made this book a 3 star read for me. There were parts I just went “no” and shook my head because I absolutely did not agree with what was being said, and it made my heart hurt in places.

This book isn’t for the faint of heart – it is not a light story at all, the topics are heavy, and though the book is short, it does pack a punch in places.

I only got through the first quarter of the book before I had to put it down. I really didn’t enjoy it. Reading the interactions between the 12 year olds was super unrealistic and yucky.

3.5 stars

There is A LOT happening in this novel.

Poor Anne grows up with a loving mother and with a father who is an alcoholic and an extremely abusive individual. The scenes are specific, so those who are especially sensitive to domestic violence, alcoholism, verbal and emotional abuse, and how these issues might impact a child who witnesses them should be mindful of this content.

Anne's home environment changes when she goes to live with her aunt, uncle, and cousins, and again when she relocates to a boarding school. During these years, Anne experiences quite a bit: uncertainty over both of her parents' current situations, a variety of moments during which she comes out - all with differing results, and various encounters with bullying. Her handling of these situations demonstrates her traumatic past as well as her continued development toward adulthood. It's also fascinating to evaluate Anne's interactions with friends and romantic partners. Despite living a strangely sheltered and unconventional youth, she continues to draw friends and family members who support her, who model what NOT to do, and who teach her about acceptance. Though she is not without struggle, her circumstances do change dramatically from her terrifying beginnings to where she leaves readers at the novel's conclusion.

Macha is ambitious and takes on these issues and more: child abuse, domestic violence, abandonment, neglect, rape, suicide, bullying, and gaslighting. While I appreciate the complexity involved in weaving these topics together, the end result was a bit overwhelming for me. I found the pacing challenging; some events that needed further explanation/development happened so abruptly, and others that could have been economized dragged on a bit. The concept here is great, but some minor restructuring could really change the overall impact.