Wow!  This book is hard.  It starts in beet juice and ends in blood.  It is as real as real can get.  And it pisses me off.  Not the book, the subject.  The author did an amazing job in writing a hard subject that is often neglected.  It’s about a young person in an abusive relationship.  So many youth think this can't happen to them, but it can and it does.  I knew nothing about this going in.  I was listening to it as an audiobook and it was absorbing, but you did have to take breaks.  It feels too real.  In my head I kept seeing R. Kelly and that situation.  I really like how the author states in her note at the end that this is not a story of R. Kelly, but a story of similar situations.  In a way I think the author chickened out having the story end in blood.  It’s almost too easy.  Because I see the R. Kelly story in this, I think of his victims who have to live day in and day out not watching their story be retold, rehashed everytime a new charge arises, or he gets bailed out and continues his habit.  Death gives a solid ending, and while for the character it is not an easy ending, for the reader it is.  The bad guy is gone (that is not a spoiler, you know from the beat juice beginning).  For the reader they can say this is just a book, that’s not me, that’s not my friend, that’s not my family, that’s not my idol.  Overall, this book is excellent.  It will live in my mind for a long time to come, but I expect nothing else from Tiffany Jackson.  An excellent book, a hard book, a necessary book.