If a reader came to me and said they loved this book, I would have no problem seeing why. On the other hand, if a reader came and moaned to me for an hour about how pretentious this book was, I would also have no way to disagree with them. 
 Janet Fitch loves her analogies; no doubt about it. At times, her words are beautifully sculpted, depicting a scene perfectly. Unfortunately, they also have the ability to smother me with their highfalutin' grandiosity. 
 Each character is absolute in their believability, right down to the tassels on their loafers, or the gritty texture of their voice. I could see and hear each of them, though the cost of this is the length to which the author will go to describe them. I found my interest in the book taper at around page 300, with still a large chunk left to swallow. So I was a little disappointed when the one character I had been waiting for, Paul Trout, was also the one character that was never developed to any great degree. There was probably some literary reason to leaving him so two dimensional, but at that point in the book I was simply too bored to bother figuring it out. 
 The subject matter is not for those with delicate sensibilities, or for those who choose to believe that we live in a world where cruelty does not exist. The sad fact of the matter is that these things do happen. Children are abused, neglected, used and ignored in every corner of the world. The worst part is that it is often overlooked. I found the perfect quote within the book itself: "ugly in its nakedness." That is exactly what this book is.