"I struggled to find anything to like about this book.

There were so many things aesthetically that didn't do it for me. So many reviewers here love the voice, but it felt so contrived to me. Many parts, specifically the elderly home sections, were just too over-the-top goofy. A lot of things logistically don't make sense. How is she somehow able to walk everywhere? Donna just drops her off at Private Jonathan's house, the house of a single grown man? There's only one black kid at the school, but there's also a "ghetto?" Her mom never eats or sleeps?

Putting aside all that, the author flinches or fumbles on the moments and conflicts that really matter. When she realizes the school board doesn't really care about helping anyone, only about not getting in trouble—that's a great growing up moment that never comes back up. When Amber gets the chance to confront her mother's killer and answer the haunting question of "why?" she doesn't even hear what he has to say. While Jesus is her spiritual savior, Donna is her earthly one, and even though Donna is on Amber's side, Donna is still pretty much a ruthless bully. Amber prides herself on being a wide-eyed optimist, but she wants to be just like Donna. She never considers what that would require of her, or what might happen if she got on Donna's bad side. In the beginning of the book, Amber wishes Donna was her mom, and she eventually gets her wish at the ultimate cost. This is a great conflict that never gets explored. "

"I hate to give a book two stars, but it means "it was okay." I didn't hate it, but I just didn't like it very much.

It's about April, whose mother leaves the family when April is small, and her father who is just not a good father. So, at age 16, April lives alone in a small mobile home with almost no food, and she's always cold. She decides to quit school and strike out on her own with her guitar and a stolen car.

The story is pretty good at first, and I couldn't put it down. But as April disappoints people along her way, she just leaves them. And I felt that the story just went every which way; no cohesiveness. It didn't all make sense, and it didn't feel good to me. It didn't seem like the book should go the way it did.

The end comes together pretty well, and I liked that. But after the middle being so disappointing, I was just glad for it to all be over. Sorry to Allison Larkin, but I won't be recommending this one."