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Everywhere I Look by Ona Gritz


Rating:

4 Stars


Themes:

Non-Fiction, True Crime, Memoir 


Thoughts:

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily. This book is a really touching tribute to Angie Boggs (was Andrea Susan Gritz) as well as her family (Raymond Boggs, Ray-Ray Boggs and her unborn daughter). In a way it is sad that when searching their names this book is the only thing that comes up aside from a detective retiring and the court case but at the same time I think this may be better than the sensationalist coverage that true crime content creators would likely make of a story like this. The book is almost a love letter to Angie as Gritz writes most of the book as if talking directly to her while trying to reclaim her story from the secrets and lies as well as her tragic end. Through the first half of the book I was angry on behalf of Angie as she was failed so badly by the adults in her life that were supposed to love and raise her which likely led to her living where she did with tenants but as the secrets were unravelled I started to understand how their mother could feel that way towards an innocent child (although that doesn’t excuse the behaviours it definitely contextualises them). I also felt for Gritz herself as she often blamed herself for not standing up to their parents but she was just a child (not even of legal drinking age by the time her sister was killed) and not only can it be hard to stand up against authority figures that young but also no one could have predicted things would end the way they did. The timeline itself does jump around a little which isn’t typical from the memoirs I’ve read prior; it doesn't interfere with the storytelling itself and in fact may enhance it a little.


Favourite Quote:

"Of course it was heartbreaking, a gravestone for an entire family who had died violently. At the same time, I also saw it as a kind of mending. So much had been withheld and taken from you in your brief life, and I'd been incapable of doing anything about it. Now, finally, I'd figured out a way to stand up for you, and soon I'd do it again by writing our story. I'd say that I remember. I'd mark that you were here."


With thanks to Apprentice House Press and Netgalley for my advanced digital copy of this book.

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