This was an intense and graphic book. The writing is vivid and colorful though I wish I would have known how serious the subject matter was before I started reading it. This is not a light-hearted book and I often had to put the book down to take a breather and come back.

After a while I did find it rather difficult to remember who was narrating as the author went back and forth between the mother and daughter often and their voices were very similar to me.

The description of this book is very misleading, it is not a Hollywood tale. It's very much based around the traumatic events that occurred throughout Nina's childhood to her and her mother.