The Quick Cut: A 16 year old girl finds her life turned upside down when her mom dies - putting her into the foster care system.
A Real Review:
Thank you to Random House for providing the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Losing loved ones can be one of the most difficult moments a person can experience. We can handle going through the pain ourselves, but when it is someone else or when that person disappears - it can leave a hole in their lives. In this story, Tiger experiences that loss when her mom suddenly dies.
Tiger Tolliver never lived the perfect life, but she was happy with it. Her mom constantly struggles to pay the bills, but she makes it work between selling jam they make and taking books to local homes for cash. However, Tiger is growing up and wants to go to the school dance (against her mom's wishes) when she gets a call that her mom has died. With no dad in the picture and no known next of kin, Tiger is thrown into the foster system. Will she survive or will the grief break her apart?
First and foremost: this book was very hard to read. The amount of pain Tiger experiences (and puts herself through if we're being honest) is so insurmountable that at points it was beyond uncomfortable to continue. You get the most grim, dark version of grief a teen could possibly go through and for that alone - this book is definitely a trigger alert.
Beyond that, the book gives a very close look at the foster care system and it's not a pretty picture. Tiger may not have had family, but there was friends dying to take her and due to the law - she was still a warden of the state. There are good homes, bad homes, and some unsung heroes who do their best to make it a better experience for the kids stuck in this broken system (even if for a short time). In most cases, its still an unhappy ending as too often the foster system doesnt provide the type of support needed or the parenting really required.
The medical mention in this book is what causes Tiger's mom to die: the brain aneurysm. The book isn't broken out by chapters; it's broken up by before, after, & now. In after, there are two mentions of the aneurysm and neither in great detail due to Tiger's shock. The first is at the hospital right after her death (page 36) and the second time is when she receives her mom's death certificate (page 179).
Based on the first conversation, it sounds like a brain aneurysm ruptured and caused a subdural hematoma. To put that in plain English: her mom had a blood vessel in her brain with weak walls, which caused a balloon to be created and fill with blood. When it broke, that bloom filled the space between the brain and the brain cover - causing pressure which would've killed her.
I liked this book and even for moments related to Tiger, but she is infuriating. She ends up down an extremely dark path that takes a toll on her body (and her soul) which if she was less lucky would have seen her dead or in a jail cell. Rather than listen to the adults or those trying to care for her, she continued to wallow and drown in her grief like an addict to drugs or alcohol.
I can only see someone torture themselves for so long before it becomes too much.
My rating: 4 out of 5