The first-person teenage girl narrator describes her life and her emotional reactions in a truly authentic voice. There are no rose colored glasses on this narrator's face: her father's job as a butcher in a meat packing business disgusts her - especially since she's become a vegetarian. However, her father feels offended, as if her social consciousness and new diet are a criticism of how he pays for the roof over their head and the food on the table. To make matters worse, her mother is dead, and she has just discovered the cause of death through her family's invitation on social media.
I liked the narrator's honest reactions and descriptions to everything from her neighborhood to the smells on her father's clothing at the end of his shift. What might be lacking for some readers is a sense of a serious conflict that threatens the narrator's life. I had to scroll back through a few pages to be sure I was understanding that the person named Sandra was, in fact, her mother; the description had seemed more like an important girlfriend who had lived with them for a while.
I liked the narrator's honest reactions and descriptions to everything from her neighborhood to the smells on her father's clothing at the end of his shift. What might be lacking for some readers is a sense of a serious conflict that threatens the narrator's life. I had to scroll back through a few pages to be sure I was understanding that the person named Sandra was, in fact, her mother; the description had seemed more like an important girlfriend who had lived with them for a while.