The book revolves around three main characters' POVs; Meg, her daughter Alex, and Carl, who owns a business transporting troubled teens from their homes to rehab type schools. All of the characters in this book are really well-developed and relatable. Meg isn't the perfect mother; she makes critical mistakes, like all mothers do, in the raising of her children. She does what she feels is best for her kids; she's lost, unable to help her daughter deal with the loss of her best friend and the downward spiral her life has taken since her best friend's death. Alex is struggling, with school, with drugs and is completely losing control of her life, and all her mother wants to do is help her, although that help often comes out in a way that her daughter rejects completely.
I'm the mother of a teenager; I know how stubborn and hard-headed they can be once they've set their minds on a certain path. And I know how hard it can be to try and wind your own head down the same path. It made it that much easier to connect with Meg, to understand her fears and frustratons and her sadness. Her marriage was falling apart, her daughter was falling apart and she just wanted to make everything better. While I could sit here and shake my head at some of her decisions, knowing that they aren't good decisions, I can totally see myself making the same ones in her shoes, with the knowledge that she has.
Alex is also a totally relatable character; you can feel her pain and her guilt, over her friend's death and the decisions that she's made since, while you can also understand why she continues to make said decisions. Donovan does a wonderful job of really getting you into the character's heads and helping you understand why they make the choices they do, and how each choice ties back to another choice. She shows you how the smallest things that you don't even notice later can affect someone else in a way that you would never have anticipated.
Carl's story was an interesting addition to the book; not necessarily a needed point of view, but not a bad addition. It gave you a little of an outsider's perspective to Alex and Meg, but one with a developed story behind it. Carl's part of the story was able to give us a view of what was going on when Alex disappeared, later in the book, as he was an instrumental part of the search for Alex.
This book is a good, quick read; the writing is beautiful and flows well throughout the story and Donovan was able to hit on a lot of different points that should appeal to a wide range of readers, whether this is a genre they would typically enjoy or not. It's really outside of my normal reading scope, but it was a nice change. Once I started the book, there was no putting it down, so I was glad that today was the rainy and nasty kind of day that is perfect for devouring a book in one sitting.
**I received this book as part of Amazon's Kindle First program; the above review is a true reflection of my thoughts regarding this book and has not been influenced in any way.**
