This is a harsh story, tense right from the start. As you read on you are inexorably ground down into dirt, squalor, filth, human depravity, cruelty and the hopelessness of being trapped in a grim situation. Grim partner, grim apartment, and no way of escaping. The style is staccato, you are machine gunned with short sentences of hard hitting descriptions of people and their thoughts. The descriptions of the stained ceiling, filthy sticky carpet, and the horrible realities of a young girl struggling in a depressing lifestyle are realistic and unremittingly hammered at you. This is not what I would call a relaxing book to read. As with so many American books, there is a lot of crudity and bad language, and transatlantic spellings and ways of expressing that can be wearing. However, they fit with the characters portrayed, and with the storyline. I'm afraid this is not a book for me.