*Thank you Voracious Readers and Ro Esterhazy for the free copy of this book, in exhange with an honest review*

The first 20 or so pages of the book had me completely hooked, I didn't want to stop reading and Roza's thoughts were so amazingly written, that I couldn't help but like her. A lot. Then, I actually "met" Roza and my admiration started slipping away bit by bit. I do understand how hard everything was for her in New York and I completely sympathized with her, but when her actions in Poland remained exactly the same and she showed no improvement of character (she changed only at the very end of the book), I couldn't help but start to not like her.

The first thing that had me saying "no" over and over again, was the fact that she slept with everything that had two legs and could identify as a man. She was out every night with her cousin, partying and doing drugs and then she would say that she doesn't have enough money to do this and that. I wonder where she got the money to even by coke on the first place. She supposedly came to Poland to find shelter and her aunt and uncle were supposed to take good care of her, she was their sister's child, for God's sake! But they did nothing, they just left her and Jullietta on their own ongoing cycle of partying and boys.

Then, towards the end, when Roza was trying to get herself together, she apologized to her aunt about all the trouble she caused. Her aunt's answer nearly made me throw my phone across the room. She said: "it's alright Roza, I've got girls too, I know how it is"! I', sorry to burst your buble, but this is not how it is. I cannot fathom the fact that a parent would just stand by and watch his/her child drinking, doing drugs and sleeping with a different man every night! Forgive if I'm wrong, but caring parents don't act like that...

That was the point were the book lost me. I lost my interest, I lost my compassion for Roza and I didn't know what to think. Several bad things happened to her, but all of those things happened because she went out and drunk to the point of having no recollection of what happened the night before! I don't know if that's a coping mechanism, but even if it is, the instinct of survival should be stronger, you should want to save yourself instead of condemning yourself to death.

If you think I'm being to hard on Roza, let me give you an example and I'll let you make your own choice. Towards the end of the book, Roza managed to collect herself, she enrolled into college and even landed an internship. While she was in college, she started an affair with an English professor. In Christmas time, he returned to England, but let Roza use his apartment. During the holidays, one of Roza's coworkers asked her to come to his house to watch a movie. Roza accepted and before going, she decided to shower just in case the boy wanted to have sex! Who does that? She was in a frickin relationship for God's sake!

Closing, this book had some great parts and some parts that infuriated me a lot. It was a story worth telling I believe, especially for the parts regarding America's public schools, that I found very interesting and enlightening to read.