I wasn't sure how I felt about this one but I've mulled and I think it's a maybe a 3.5. Unsurprisingly it's fairly bleak but the narrator is never asking you to feel sorry for her. The review on the back talks about loving and hating the parents but I don't know what there was to love, they were despicable, irresponsible people. It's great that all the kids got out and away and didn't fall into the same cycle as their parents.

Having no contact with my own father, and feeling pretty black and white about a lot of moral issues that others would consider grey, I cannot get my head around the constant allowances that they gave their parents once they moved to New York, but I do understand the guilt.

Not a holiday read, but an interesting musing on relationships with problematic parents.