Out of the Easy

by Ruta Sepetys

[readingwithwrin]

"Sometimes we set off down a road thinkin' we're goin' one place and we end up another. But that's okay. The important thing is to start."

Ruta Sepetys is becoming a must read author for me.

I had tried to read this book a little earlier this year, but just could not get into it. So I put, it off for a while and then picked it up once again and

this time I absolutely loved it.

In this story we follow Josie a teenager whose mother is a brothel prostitute and is the most uncaring person in the whole story. Despite this though

Josie becomes independent at a very young age living above a bookshop at the age of 11, and working there from then on. With the help of the bookshop

owner Charlie, his son Patrick, Willie the brothel Madam, and Cokie the cab driver, Josie finishes high school and then works in the bookshop full-time

while cleaning the brothel to earn money to go to college as far away from New Orleans as possible. Sadly everything got turned upside down when her

mothers boyfriend, Cincinatti, comes back to town. From then on everything goes to crap. Charlie's health gets even worse, Josie's mother becomes involved

in a murder, and Josie has a hard time getting accepted into Smith University due to finances and not having enough extracurricular activities.

On top of all of this we have a slight love interests. There is Patrick who she has known she was little a grew up around, and there

is also Jesse the boy that all of the girls in town want. I'm not going to lie a lot of the time I don't care about the whole love interests in books, but

Sepetys always makes me like the ones she creates. I love how she makes the relationship slowly happen and it feels natural. I was so happy she ended up

with who she did.

While the ending was sad I was happy how it turned out, and how everyone was able to end up "happy" in the end. I would love to see more of what happens to Josie and how she gets on with things in her new life.

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