Trigger Warnings: Abuse, sexual abuse, incest

Neva is a young therapist who is grappling with her own past as she tries to help six troubled teens living in a halfway house on the Texas coast. There, she meets Alec, a teen at Morning House who reminds her deeply of her twin brother who passed away. As Neva tries to protect Alec from the same fate as her brother, life at Morning House begins to unravel and begins to lead everyone down a dangerous path.

I honestly kind of struggled with this one a bit - nearly everyone had some form of sexual abuse or incest and yes, it’s kind of hinted at in the description, but not as much as it probably should have.

William West’s background as a social worker shows up in this novel for sure as this does dive into the depths of the abuse and neglect the characters went through. It’s not really a feel-good read, it will probably make people uncomfortable, but it will challenge the reader to experience a viewpoint of life with at-risk youth.

I will say, the last ⅛ of the book is what saved it for me - as they started piecing together the big mystery that was playing out throughout most of the book.

Overall, this book was a bit challenging for me because it had such tough storylines that the characters went through, but it was still worth the read for me.

*Thank you TouchPoint Press and the LibraryThing for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review ( )

I wanted to like this book, but it never really connected. Characters said things and did things, but as a reader I was never sure of their motivations. None of the characters felt fully realized, and for most of them their traumas were all that separated them from being essentially the same. The plot was interesting, but it was never enough to salvage the story. ( )

ok this book really, REALLY needs a CONTENT WARNING for sexual abuse and incest. As a therapist, I could see many of my clients really being triggered by this book. Almost every character has some kind of childhood sexual abuse and incest. Yes, the description talks about it being a "halfway house for troubled teens" but I don't think that is an adequate warning about the content of this book! That said, I really enjoyed this book and think many others would too, as long as they are adequately warned about the content. This book does a really good job of showing how teens who have suffered this kind of event find themselves in a world they can't trust. And the therapist in charge of the halfway house has her own history of this, and therefore struggles to help them. I loved the story, the characters and really empathized with their stories.