At the heart of her book is an earnest critique of the incoherent cruelties of the criminal justice system ... Her book is generous and ambitious; she drops juicy details from her chaotic life even as she leads us to examine forces beyond herself.
For the most part, it works. Ferrell is, as she herself confesses, a gifted communicator and manipulator of words, charming and garrulous and breezily intimate. Her story is compelling by any standard ... There’s enough that she seems to omit, or gloss over, that her account is best taken as an interpretation of events rather than as historical record. But she’s commendable for the ways in which she does try to confess, reflect, self-analyze, adjudicate.
