I read this book in a single day. I don't usually do that; in fact I haven't done that in years. I basically abandoned all of my other responsibilities just to finish this book. I also read it as an ebook on my laptop, which I don't really like doing lol -- so all of that should just show you how much I could NOT put this book down.

I went into ESTIB expecting a plot-heavy thriller, which I did get, but I didn't expect to be so wowed by the beauty of the language. Samantha Crewson can not only concoct a twisty, suspenseful plot, but she can write very well on the sentence level. There are phrases like this -

<i>"No matter how many years separate me from that day, there is no new beginning. Nothing changes. Absolution is a myth. Some sins you must pay for again and again and again, as long as you live."</i>

and

<i>"It is an emotional bloodletting, a return to a place long forgotten in the fog of memory."</i>

and

<i>"People are only the tally of their memories."</i>

and

<i>"The little memories are the ones that eat me alive."</i>

(I just realized that 3 of these 4 quotes are about memory. Maybe there's just something about the idea of memory that lends itself to beautiful writing.)

Providence's reaction to emotional pain is to bite herself; she has scars all over her arms. The writing about this was so well done--I could feel the narrator's pain, her urgency and desperation to sink her teeth into her skin and numb herself to emotional anguish by way of physical self-harm. It felt so REAL. Most SH topics in books focus on cutting and nobody really talks about the other methods, but I think this is so important to have been included. The contrast between her tattoos and her scars was another thing that stood out for me.

Providence has reshaped her body in another way -- she's got breast implants, lip injections and Botox, along with the tattoos. I LOVED the reasoning behind this, how she was taking control of her sexuality when, as a child/teenager, that sexuality had been either repressed or (we don't see much detail in this but it's heavily implied) taken advantage of in the most horrific way. Are you tired of women reshaping their bodies to appeal to men? Me too! And you're going to love this even more in that case, because Providence isn't into men anyway.

I genuinely had no idea where the greater plot, involving the missing mom, was going -- you think it's going to go one way, but nope, it's going another way entirely! But wait .... it's not going that way either! I loved that. It felt like being on a fun ride that you don't know where it's going to end up, but you know it'll end up somewhere good. Even just a third of the way through the novel, I knew I was in good hands.

The patchwork of characters was so colorful. That thing where you can tell who's speaking without having to use dialogue tags? Yeah. This book has that. That's how vivid the characterization is. The depiction of the old man in the nursing home was heartbreaking, and I LOVED the complexity of the narrator's feelings around him. Yes, he was good for helping her when she was hurt by her father as a kid, but ultimately he never tried to get her out of the abusive household, because he was scared, because--let's just say it--he was kind, but he was a coward. Grappling with complicated feelings about a person who has done something good for you, but has not done ENOUGH, is hard to write about. Complexity in general is hard to write about. Crewson does it so well.

The scenes with Harmony, one of Providence's estranged sisters, are some of my favorites. She has a personality that's just as strong as Providence, but it's been warped. It's twisted, darker, an ugly underbelly of the narrator's persona. And yet even Harmony has a good side, which we see very clearly at the end of the book.

This is becoming way too long, so I'll just end by saying that I heartily recommend this book even if you are not generally a fan of mysteries or crime fiction. I NEVER read crime fiction--90% of what I read is litfic--yet I still loved this. It's hard to find a book that excels at both the genre/plot elements AND the writing-on-a-line-level elements, but this one does.

Every Sweet Thing Is Bitter is a story about a woman, Providence, who returns to her hometown to help search for her missing mother. It has been over a decade since Providence has returned- she was in prison for a crime against her mother and then rebuilt her life away from her terrible childhood memories. Now back in her hometown, she must face her family trauma, try to reunite with her younger sisters, and revisit many past relationships. I absolutely loved this book and loved Providence’s character. This is a story of rage, revenge, and ultimately, redemption. I would highly recommend this book to readers of character-driven crime fiction!

Amazing book, I didn’t want to put it down until I’d finished. I love how it speaks of the part of trauma everyone avoids talking about, the self destruction, the hurting yourself until it stops hurting in your brain.

I also love how it showed how you can turn your life around and it had all sides of the path from someone who doesn’t change, to someone who relapses, to someone who’s willing to go back to prison to protect the people they love and to someone who turns their life around completely.

The actual plot was great, I love a good crime story and it really had me guessing until the end, I thought I knew straight away what had happened but I was so wrong.