I didn't expect to like this book, it's another pick from the BoH indie brawl intention list which fell so far outside of my comfort zone that I almost decided to skip it. I'm glad I decided to give it a go after all because I ended up really enjoying it, well as much as you can enjoy reading really tragic stuff.

Possible spoilers ahead read at your own discretion. I often find that when authors write a tragic character turned evil they resolve to really lazy tropes to move the story in that direction, Morris took the opposite direction, she gave us an unflinching look into how the "villain" came to be without letting us forget what she became, the result was emotionally complex and I really appreciated that.

This is one of those books that rotate each chapter between past and present. I have to admit that I enjoyed the past much more. The chapters that dated back were fascinating, almost brutal, and heartbreaking. You're getting a story (first person) from a child to a grown woman's POV of her life. It starts when she's eight-years-old (I think) suffering the worst kind of abuse a little girl can suffer at the hands of her father. The girl loves her family very much, from her siblings, to her deceased mother, to her own children, and even her deceased children. Everyone except her father. Times were different back then, but as time goes on, her life gets worse and worse especially when the government steps in and takes everyone she loves away from her.
In the present day story, a family is living in a house up the street from which the past stories occurred. I found the present day storyline to begin a bit slow. Kinda wordy. But I don't usually read books of this length. I'm guilty of picking up more novellas than I do novels. So that was me. Not the story's fault.
I felt something reading this book. Mostly pity for the main character. I think my heart broke a time or two. So that's good. If a book gives you feels, then the author has done a great job.