Main character is someone you love to hate. As a white woman I think it’s hilarious and important to see how insufferable we can be. There were times the story got a little repetitive and like “is she going to actually get the karma she deserves this time?” It was an easy, quick read perfect for the summer.

A wonderfully raw look into the life of Cyntoia Brown. This is a story I started following around 2019. I appreciated learning so much about her childhood and upbringing. I think it added a lot of background context as to how she ended up in the situation where she was forced to act in self defense as a 16 year old (I don’t think that is a spoiler since that is a well documented fact of this case). I learned a lot about the U.S. “justice” system and prison industrial complex through Brown’s first hand account of being in and out of institutionalization since childhood. I was reminded of how often our education system fails black children (especially in the early 2000s) and research I have read about the school to prison pipeline.

And as someone who has never been very religious, I also learned about how faith can provide hope and empowerment for people in such dark and bleak situations such as Brown’s. Her ability to overcome and triumph some of the most unfair and difficult circumstances is nothing short of remarkable.

trigger warning: content involves human trafficking and SA. I have read several memoirs written by survivors of SA before, but for some reason this one hit me differently, and there were times I had to put the book down as it was a bit too much for me. But I don’t regret reading it, but would just caution anyone who has trouble with this type of content.