Book Review: FALLOUT

It’s all about perspective.

It took me 12 days to finish all 1890 pages of this three book series.

It’s a ride – it’s meant to be.  Reading these books is supposed to feel a little like an addiction.  They draw you in, take you high, make you crash, and show you the bitter reality yet gleaming hope that can be left at the other end.

This book continues “Christina’s” story, but from the perspective of her children.  As the author says “I chose to pull out of Christina’s point of view, into her children’s to give them a voice, and to give a voice to my readers who struggle with their own parents’ addictions.  I also believe the ultimate hope of these stories lies here, with the generation that can choose to break this cycle.” “[Meth] doesn’t only destroy the addict.  It tries to destroy everyone who loves him or her. Parents. Children. Partners. Spouses.  Friends.”

This book does not show the typical teenager’s life.  (Although sadly it is becoming much more common)

 It shows the life of the children of addicts.  The broken, the beaten, the abandoned.  The totally screwed up families that form from a meth addict with 5 kids from all different fathers who end up in all different states, some in foster care, some with grandparents, aunts uncles.  It shows the stress on the biological families, the foster families, and everyone else who tries to help or make sense of the shattered remains.

I work in a State-funded, child and adolescent mental health clinic.  Half the kids I see are in foster care.  Over half have been abused or neglected - and mostly by drug addicted parents.  

This book is just like the first two.  It is not sugar-coated, nor is it hyped-up to scare you.  It is simply accurate.  

Chillingly accurate.