Forged in Grace

I have found that the characters we want to like are not always the ones we end up falling in love with. The ones who we find to be constricting and may label the antagonist are maybe the heroes after all.

Jordan Rosenfeld has written a book that I am so genuinely surprised by. As it began I instantly felt protective towards Grace. After all, she was damaged, putting on this brave face, living under her mother's crazy thumb. How do you not root for the underdog? How do you not want everything in her life to come up roses?

Then enters Marly. She's beautiful, bold and bubbly. She embraces Grace and reveals a mother's deceit. She wants to make Grace's life better. She wants to protect and encourage her. But I could never fall in love with Marly. She was wrong. And it wasn't the hints at her mental illness. Goodness knows I have no room to judge there. But it was something. I didn't trust her, I didn't like her.

But I wanted to.

There were so many twists and turns and lies and betrayals that in the end I was left with my head spinning. Thinking endlessly in this loop of ‘what just happened there?' Rosenfeld has seamlessly fused reality with fantasy, thriller with romance, graphic with tender and horrific with beauty. She writes of pain and loss and forgiveness.

She writes with brilliance.