Conviction knocked me over. I read Kelly Loy Gilbert's blog many years ago, while she was working on this book. I lost track of her, so when I found this, I was really excited to pick it up - and it was even better than I thought it would be.

Loy's writing is incredibly insightful - I'm going to have to buy a copy so I can highlight. “This is why I hate when people tell me I don’t know how you’re surviving—because that implies you get a choice. What do they think, you’re actually going to die? Because that’s not how it works. You don’t get an escape into nothing.”

This is a powerful story about faith and abuse and how horrible it can be to be a teenager, especially when your life is dictated by horrible adults. I'm also a big baseball fan, so that part of the book added a great depth to the story. This isn't typical YA - it so, so much deeper than that. It is compelling and I couldn't stop turning pages - I read it in a day, staying up way past my bedtime to finish.