Damaged (Rosato & DiNunzio, #4)

by Lisa Scottoline

[Joni Reads]

I received this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I have read a few of Lisa Scottoline's books before but never one in this group of books. I am happy to say that it definitely makes a great stand alone novel as I was a bit nervous about that.

I have to say this was one of those books that kept me up at night wanting answers. Now I'm a mom to 3 year old twins and I stayed up till 2 AM reading this book the past few nights. If that doesn't tell you how great this story is then I don't know what will.

Scottoline had the legal facts laid out amazingly accurate and also easy to understand. I have a semi unique point of view because I kind of lived through part of the legal aspect of this novel. See, I live in Pennsylvania (albeit Western PA) which is where the novel takes place (Philadelphia area) and I was in foster care while my best friend's parents took classes so that I could go into what is called kinship care, meaning a relative or close family friend takes the child instead of them being placed in a foster home. As Scottoline discussed the laws in place for such a situation I found myself nodding along, because it was definitely accurately written.

Mary is a lawyer for a law firm in Philadelphia and tends to take on special education cases. She agrees to take the case of a 5th grade boy named Patrick who is dyslexic and who has been abused at his school. After a few crazy events Mary finds herself working her butt off to become Patrick's guardian and make sure he doesn't fall through the cracks and to help him get a good education and be properly cared for.

I was up till early morning hours waiting with bated breathe to find out if Mary would win her case to have kinship care of Patrick. I felt emotionally invested in this novel and it was refreshing to stay awake reading a novel that was genuinely intriguing, not simply because it is a thriller and while you want to know what happens next you're also a bit nervous to go to bed. Damaged was not a book like that. It held my attention without being a thriller and having me jump three feet when one of my kids crawls into bed with me. For the first time in a while I was genuinely interested in the story of the novel, not the action or the thrill of it which was a great change of pace.

I would definitely recommend this novel. It's great, it's very well written and it holds your attention to the last page.