Julia Darling (1956–2005)

More than 60 pages into this book and I've decided to put it down.
The author is a good writer with an interesting, staccato-like style.
But it's a bit like eating popcorn when you're hungry. You take one bite, then another and another and each taste is good, but somehow it doesn't add up to be truly filling.
I simply didn't come to care about the characters, and the pattern of one quick sentence after another, however interesting in and of itself, didn't add up to a compelling story.

Dark corners of an extraordinary childhood/life, fun to read about, but probably would have been much less fun to actualy live through.

I had a lot of trouble feeling interested in the characters and understanding their motivations. It seemed unbelievable how quickly the main character went out of control after her mother was arrested for a very minor crime. The book just didn't feel developed or believable to me, which made it hard to get into. If the characters' reactions seem overly melodramatic, the ending seems overly optimistic, given the almost total disintegration of the family that occurs during the main body.