Trisha is a badass girl in a bad situation, enjoyable read!

Love and violence. In some families they’re bound up together, dysfunctional and poisonous, passed from generation to generation like eye color or a quirk of smile. Trisha’s trying to break the chain, channeling her violent impulses into Muay Thai kickboxing, an unlikely sport for a slightly built girl of Trinidadian descent. 

Her father comes and goes as he pleases, his presence adding a layer of tension to the Toronto east-end townhouse that Trisha and her mom call home, every punch he lands on her mother carving itself indelibly into Trisha’s mind. 

Until the night he wanders out drunk in front of the car Trisha is driving, practicing on her learner’s permit, her mother in the passenger seat. Her father is killed, and her mother seems strangely at peace. Lighter, somehow. Trisha doesn’t know exactly what happened that night, but she’s afraid it’s going to happen again. Her mom has a new man in her life and the patterns, they are repeating.

I got through this book so fast! It was a gripping read and I blasted through the story. The story centres around a young fighter in Toronto called Trisha, she uses fighting, in this case Muay-Thai as an escape from her family. Trish’s dad lives in Trinidad and only visits every so often but when he does he leaves his mark on Trish’s mum, though he never lays a finger on Trish herself.

Then one fateful night while driving home from having dinner with her mum and auntie, Trish accidentally runs her father over and kills him. But was it an accident? This is the first real hook in the story that leads it to have a kind of murder-mystery aspect to it. (I won’t go into this further to not ruin the plot)

Trish then spends most of her time at the gym practicing and though she is good, she keeps getting beaten and it’s almost like she is punishing herself. I do love the narrative of Trish, she is SO sarcastic and dry and that really appealed to me. Her group of girls that she fights with have a good camaraderie and that goes as far as their own self-interest with fighting as they are all training for a tournament.

There are a lot of time jumps within the book itself which can get a little confusing but the story is so fast-paced that you jump right back in. There is the slight curveball of this mythical character thing with claws that leaves marks on you and slowly drains you and I have no idea if that was real or not but it certainly added to the intrigue.

Overall I loved the kick-ass, strong and independent attitude of Trisha and it was enjoyable reading about someone who takes control of their situation, the ending i’m a little unsure of but it was a good read.

Thank you to Hot Key Books for the Advanced copy of this book!