Ah how this book started with the promise of a five star read but unfortunately it wasn’t. 

 The entire book is written from the perspective of Clove talking to her long estranged mother. While I enjoyed that style for a few chapters, afterwards it became really tedious and made the book hard to really dive in to. 

 The story is an essential one and shines a light of the loneliness of motherhood; womanhood and domestic violence; battered women syndrome; the ripple effects of violence. 

 There were moments that were highly relatable to me as a mother of two and moments that broke my heart for any woman and child who have had to face domestic violence of any kind. However, these moments never really crescendo for me into magic. 

 I wish Clove was written differently. I love flawed characters but the fact that she was so unlikeable made it really difficult to care about what happened to her. 

 As always, this is just my opinion on the book and should not take away from the hard-work that the author has put into it.