I want to start my review of this with a positive: the character development throughout this story is some of the best I’ve seen. All of the characters grew throughout the story and I greatly appreciated that.
I have read and heard a lot of reviews of this book and nearly the majority of them said this was the most depressing book they’ve ever read and they weren’t wrong. I know Ms. Hannah’s thing is making her readers cry, but this took it a little too far. It seemed that terrible things loomed around every corner and any time things looked like they might pick up again, our protagonist and her family were kicked back down.
The other part that really bothered me was the writing style. I absolutely hate when the word “said” is used for every piece of dialogue. There are so many better words that can be used to convey emotion: screamed, exclaimed, cried, whined, just to name a few. I listened to this book, so maybe I picked up on it more than had I just been reading it. It goes to show what a wonderful narrator Julia Whelan is because she was able to convey the emotion in dialogue that Kristin Hannah could not.