This book started in a gripping, horrifying way as Steve Watts is beaten to death under the watchful eyes of his eldest son Liam. The rest of the book however, has this as a side-plot to the main story of the life of Steve's widow Angie, her children Grace and Zac and Angie's sister Emma.
Following Steve's death, Angie is struggling to make ends meet on her part-time wage at the charity and the book documents her descent into poverty, debt and eventually homelessness.
Her 13 year old daughter, Grace tries to contribute financially and with the 'help' of a person online gets an 'acting' job that is not what it seems.
I found this book a little hard to swallow, not only for the political agenda of the author who on one hand berates the harsh failings of the social services, housing and benefits system and how it can allow people to fall into poverty but then in the second half of the book juxtaposed alongside this commentary was the fairy-tale ending, where Angie meets someone who helps her out of her poverty in a completely unrealistic and unbelievable way until she becomes a wealthy. property owner.
This book was trying to be two things and sadly failed at both. As a political and social commentary about how easy it was to fall into crippling debt, and for young people to be groomed into sex and drug gangs this was doing well, until Martin came in on his white horse, and gave her a house, a lawyer, a job, and ... and ... and
This juxtaposition of hard-hitting social commentary and chick-lit romance didn't work for me. The characters were well defined, although I do feel some of the behaviours weren't believable. The author would have been better placed to choose one genre and stick to it.
Following Steve's death, Angie is struggling to make ends meet on her part-time wage at the charity and the book documents her descent into poverty, debt and eventually homelessness.
Her 13 year old daughter, Grace tries to contribute financially and with the 'help' of a person online gets an 'acting' job that is not what it seems.
I found this book a little hard to swallow, not only for the political agenda of the author who on one hand berates the harsh failings of the social services, housing and benefits system and how it can allow people to fall into poverty but then in the second half of the book juxtaposed alongside this commentary was the fairy-tale ending, where Angie meets someone who helps her out of her poverty in a completely unrealistic and unbelievable way until she becomes a wealthy. property owner.
This book was trying to be two things and sadly failed at both. As a political and social commentary about how easy it was to fall into crippling debt, and for young people to be groomed into sex and drug gangs this was doing well, until Martin came in on his white horse, and gave her a house, a lawyer, a job, and ... and ... and
This juxtaposition of hard-hitting social commentary and chick-lit romance didn't work for me. The characters were well defined, although I do feel some of the behaviours weren't believable. The author would have been better placed to choose one genre and stick to it.