This is such a great book that I would recommend to everybody! Now, why would I say that and then only give it 3.5 stars? I really loved the first half, even though the unique writing style, especially the switches between Standard English (third person) and AAVE (first person) was a bit confusing at first. But the second half kind of dragged for me and it felt to me like I couldn’t really see where this was going because the whole book took place over the course of just one weekend—that’s a stylistic choice and I respect it, haha, I’m just not sure I enjoyed it so much because, as I said, some parts felt longer than they needed to be. As someone from Europe where the prison system is very different to the one in the US, I also found the aspects about Carlotta’s years in prison almost hard to believe. What do you MEAN, that’s how the US do it??? In my country, there’s a maximum prison sentence with the goal of every prisoner being released-integrated into society. On average, prisoners here who got “life sentences” spend 18-22 years in prison—that’s approximately what Carlotta got! Of course, no system is without its faults but after reading up some more about the US and how the do prison time… whew.