Hannah has dealt with being called a Holy Roller her whole life, she is able to ignore the odd looks she gets for her long braided hair and the different clothes she wears to cover her body and keep her modesty. She is smart and has her faith. But one summer while her family vacationed for the summer in James Island, South Carolina Hannah learned more about life. She got a job and wore a t-shirt for the first time, hiding it from her mother. And with her new found freedom, a taste of a different world Hannah was called pretty, a word that she never thought would apply to her. Sam, a young boy that stole her heart and changed her life forever left Hannah broken and disgraced forcing her mother to step in, make the hard decisions, and create a whole new life for their family in attempts to protect Hannah from her past forever.

Trailer trash, a word Angel was use to her and her family being called. Momma & daddy fought over money, the car, and whiskey and if Angel and her sister Janie stayed around to see how the fights ended they would no doubt become a part of it. So they ran, hid in the tobacco fields next to their small rusted trailer. Janie is the one that taught her how to dance for men, how to drink whiskey, and how to steal. Then Janie left leaving Angel to fend for herself and discover that the family she thought was her own really only adopted her for the money that came with her as a baby. So Angel waited, saved, and plotted for the day she could leave and search out her true mother. Finally when she was 17 it happened and Angel was free to look for a family that had let her go.

But there is a third presence in the book, one that while you more than likely will not agree with her actions but it will be the motives that reach out. Hannah’s mother, so focused on protecting her child to keep her from pain, to keep her life from being ruined by choices she made as a teen. Her mother is so blind to the truth to realize that the choices she made hurt Hannah more than anything else. She is a center force that drives the book and you understand what pushes her but want to shake her at the same time.

Both of the main stories are incredibly interesting, drawing you in, having you care for two every different people. They move slowly, trading off throughout the book at whose turn it is. Hannah’s story is told third person while Angel’s is first person. But even with the switch off in characters and the style of writing it wasn’t scattered and didn’t distract from the story being told. I came to feel for both girls for very different reasons and because of the pain each felt growing up being different an outcast and their desires to be wanted to connect with the one person missing in their lives it is easy to relate to them both.

From the moment I started reading I had a difficult time putting the book down. I finished it in under 2 days. Stealing moments here and there throughout the day to read, my mind constantly drifting back to the story as I worked. I don’t know if it is because I have felt out-casted and longed to find the right person in my life to make everything fit, or if it is because I have a mother that has and will always furiously protect me. It could just be that as the lives of these two girls spun closer and closer together I was hooked, drawn in by the characters, the love, the life journeys.

A wonderful read for anyone that has had or is a protective mother, have made choices in their past and are looking for redemption, have lost someone close and want nothing more than to find them again, or just feel deep down there is something missing in their life and nothing will stop them from trying to find it.