Beautiful and heartbreaking and sad and hopeful and ... and and. 
 I'm willing to believe that Joseph, at 13, truly loved his girlfriend, also 13. I'm willing to believe she truly loved him back. I believe that there were all sorts of legal issues surrounding custody of the baby (though I find it odd that her parents weren't fighting for their grandchild, but whatever). I believe that a troubled kid can flourish in the right environment. Joseph's story somehow cut right through all my cynicism and my heart broke for him, over and over again. 
 BUT WTF THAT ENDING. We didn't need that sort of conclusion. There were better ways to handle that. (view spoiler)[No reason Maddie needed to be dead; that's a very First-Part-Last solution to get her out of the way. And Joseph's dad was an abusive jerk but I don't see ANYTHING that was gained in this plot by killing Joseph off with him. The kid's been through enough. Let him deal with growing up and adjusting and being a part of his daughter's life. There's plenty of story there. And also I appreciate the effort to close the circle and let Joseph's foster family adopt the baby later on, but what about the family that was fostering the baby? What happened to them? (hide spoiler)] 
 But aside from the above spoilers, this was beautiful and I loved it. I'm just pretending the last two chapters didn't happen.