While I have stopped rating memoir, again this is a hybrid story. Weaving together different time periods ("before" "after") rather than a straight chronology, Perry centers and spotlights her mother's story. Using memory, official records and notes, etc to build a life that has been overshadowed in other retellings, just as so many crime victims have been. CW suicide ideation, fatphobia. "To live in the world, I realized then and still believe, you have to participate, you have to make relationships and meaning for yourself, because there is no ultimate design. You have to pretend that it is impossible for a killer to come in the night and destroy everything. I will never forget that improbability is not the same as impossibility."