Review: An amazing story close to my own home
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 10 16, 2013
I walk past Lacy Jail every morning, the jail in Santa Ana, CA where this story takes place. My only personal experience there was putting money on a relative's account a few times, and one three-hour "time-out" in a tank in the late 90s.I enjoy any book about the real Orange County, the one I've lived in since I was 11yrs old. There's not much of it. This book is one of the richest jail accounts I've read, and that it takes in a place weirder than anyone who doesn't live here realizes, makes this book a unique read.Some of her experiences relate interactions she had in prison with convicts whose crimes were well known here. Her own story is sort of left in the back for the character study she is doing in this book. Her own story is interesting, having to do with a boyfriend's drug dealing activity. But for what she trying to accomplish here, her own story would get in the way. She is acting as a writer should act, to convey the story without getting in the way. While I feel she was likely a victim of circumstance, her own culpability doesn't have anything to do with how well she can write. And this lady writes well.