Review: Editing and characterization make this a sometimes confusing read
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 01 19, 2014
There is a lot of "ghetto" and not much "love" in this book.  It's a serial, so it ends on a cliffhanger.The editing is terrible, to the point where it is sometimes a challenge to tell what exactly the author is attempting to communicate.  The scene jumps can be confusing -- sometimes it will suddenly become a new scene and the reader won't realize it for a few lines.  Character will start talking and you will have been unaware they were in the room until that point.However, the most confusing thing by far was the characterization, especially of Pam, the main character.  Pam starts the book as a seemingly stable, if incredibly unpleasant, person.  She is a nurse, owns a house, provides for her three daughters.  Within a very short span of time, her personality seems to disentegrate.  She is slitting throats, forcing her daughters into prostitution, ordering murders.  It doesn't make any sense.  From scene to scene, I never knew what to expect from her.  One minute she's crying and promising to treat her daughters better, then she's pointing guns in their face.  In one scene, she is telling everyone she doesn't care about a dead family member, in the next she's going to the funeral and breaking down.  With a bit more finesse, I might have thought the author was attempting to portray someone with a personality disorder, but how did she get to the point she is at in the beginning of the book if she is such a wreck?  Without access to more of what Pam is thinking and feeling, it's hard to tell what the author was trying to do.