I am a little over halfway through the book. As a mother (entirely imperfect), a daughter and a grandmother… I find myself very frustrated with the characters. Maybe because they parallel very well with my life. The flaws are different, but have similar effects on the people around.

I do empathize with the characters, but I also find myself mentally yelling at them. I think this is because it’s much easier to see what’s wrong in a situation you are not in yourself. Objectivity.

What I liked was the perseverance that the characters showed. They stumbled but kept trying.

I guess I must have felt empathy because I w so often angry and frustrated at their repeated selfish mistakes. They were redeemed but at great cost!

I felt empathy for these characters despite there sometimes wretched choices. I remember the passage when Brianna was explaining to A model the concept of “at risk”, the fact that it includes poverty, minority status, family substance abuse, divorce or single parent status, appeal abuse. Every one of the characters had one or more of these ” at risk” factors. For this reason, I found myself rooting for them. I think out of all of them, Yolanda was the least flawed character, while Amadeo was the most flawed. Yolanda was a very, very strong women, and her job was relatively… Read more »

All the characters would benefit from speaking what is truly in their hearts. They hold all their most painful feelings close, but if they spoke them to one another, they could begin to heal from old and new wounds. Everyone seems to be barely holding it together and as the title suggests, they all self crucify.

I loved the character Yolanda, but I think she was a barrier to her family’s growth. The way she enabled her kids, essentially keeping Amedeo from growing up. She was the glue for her family but it was a stagnant glue that kept them from moving up.

It was especially interesting to read the inner dialogue of Angel, how she wants to reach out and mend her relationships but her inner “demons” force her to push everyone away.

In the beginning it was hard to have any empathy as they were so focused on themselves, all except the Mother/Grandmother who gave too much of herself and nothing to herself. Towards the end I was hoping they would all come around, meet their problems head on and not be so negative. Finally, in the end, it came around, all due to a terrible accident. It is a shame this is what took to wake them up. They still had problems to work out but at least there seemed to be a future ahead.

All of these characters yearned for forgiveness, love and acceptance, but from outside themselves. The journey to find how to give that to themselves was not shown by example. I think also it is something that they learn has to be continuously worked at.

I felt empathy for each character. It was very interesting to me to hear of their lives and circumstances so different than mine and feel the reasons that lead them to act the way they did. I did not judge them but knew they couldn’t help reacting as they did because of desperation due to poverty and fear and hopelessness. Conner was what gave them a reason to change and try to be better and love is what was the main theme to me.

The only character I had little empathy for was Brianna, who abused her power over the girls in her program and could not show compassion for them as individuals when it mattered the most. Lizette was not wrong about her applying the rules unevenly, but instead of performing any self examination and trying to improve, Brianna became defensive and doubled down on her mistakes. I know she was young, but she was supposed to be the adult in that situation. I was so infuriated when she kicked Angel out of the program that I had to stop reading for a… Read more »

I have empathy for Amadeo Padilla. He is a mama’s boy and he hasn’t learned the proper choices. I think he can dislodge himself which he finally does after her death.