This book is a wild ride verging on the ridiculous but firmly planted in reality. Lacey May Herd is a 14 year old girl trapped in a cult and is fighting each day discovering more about herself, the world, and her faith as she's forced to comply with the whims of the church's leader Vern.

The prose is so wonderful - it focuses on the mundane, comparing and contrasting against the absurd to bring the setting into life. Lacey's narrative stays innocent, both appropriate for her age and not, tainted by the things she's forced to endure. It's bitter and it's sweet as she grows too fast but not fast enough.

The plot, I feel, is rather straightforward with the kinds of twists that make you think "oh no, when do they make it all stop? How far will it go before it blows up?", a good kind of anxiety.

I think the main focus is Lacey's and her mother's relationship - or lack thereof, a constant undercurrent from page one to the last sentence. I think it's more about breaking cycles than it is about her mother, who is the kind that even if they're present, they're emotionally absent. The moment her mother leaves, she's filled with "motherloss", the abandonment, the repressed memories of past abuse by her mother's boyfriends, the longing for a mother's love. And though she lives with her maternal grandmother, Cherry, she's confronted by the reality that her mother was just another link in the chain. I think it was the learning that motherly love doesn't HAVE to come from your biological mother, but also you can become the person you've always wanted in your own life. Manifest it.

I 100% cried at the end. It was satisfying, reflective, and touched on each theme of the book (what is faithfulness, what is motherhood, found families and breaking cycles). I couldn't be happier that I picked this book up.