critter 's review for:

For the Record by Monique Polak

3.0

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For the Record has themes and topics that are very important to discuss. The story follows Justine after the divorce of her parents who takes down notes every time her father does something deemed wrong. This gives her mother an advantage to demand sole custody of Justine. This book is supposed to cover parental alienation, which it does very well. However, my issue is the lack of consequences and the neatness of the ending. There are signs of parentification, and the mother is very manipulative and has a lot that she herself needs to work through. We are also just told that the father is a bad parent but are never really shown why. And that might be part of the point, but I wanted to know more about the relationship he had with Justine beyond the manipulation that Justine's mother showed. I would also think that Justine's lies, and notes would have negatively impacted her relationship with her father. Justine's mother also didn't really seem to experience any consequences for how she treated and used Justine. I overall just wanted to see more from what was going on and more details and buildup between events.

I would like to thank Owlkids Books for providing me with an ARC.