"The Magdalen Girls" is an embarassingly badly written book about an important subject. The Magdalen Laundries in Ireland, the UK, Europe and the US imprisoned many thousands (maybe millions) of girls and women and used them as slave labor in the name of "rescuing" "fallen women." While the book accurately conveys the fact that girls could easily wind up in these institutions and it was very difficult for them to get out again, the storytelling is cringeworthy. None of the characters have any real depth, and Alexander telegraphs his plot turns from a mile away. And, although these institutions were places of shocking mistreatment and abuse, Alexander goes over the top to pile trauma upon trauma on his characters, to the point that it feels almost like satire. I'm not sure if he's done anything here to raise awareness. I just hope this book doesn't wind up actively doing harm to the efforts to gain apologies and reparations for the survivors of Magdalen Laundries.