I'd rate this 3.5 if goodreads allowed half stars. I had a hard time connecting with Mia as a character. Everything she tells us about herself and how the characters are actually reacting are at odds. For example, while her best friend Kim is pleading for her to live and how jail would be better than losing her she coldly decides that Kim would survive and move on and didn't need her. That was not the feeling I was getting out of Kim or the rest of her family.This was her whole feeling for everyone in flashbacks. I've never met a character so blind to anyone else's feelings. She needed constant reassurance that her parents and her boyfriend even loved her.
All the while we're told she's so talented and a protege so where did this lack of assurance come from? Having a different hair colour from everyone else didn't cut it.
Having an unreliable narrator and one disconnected from the emotions around them gave this book a weird edge.
The subject matter alone and imagining such a thing happening to anyone was enough to make me depressed but the feeling didn't come from Mia. I think it was the out of body thing where she wasn't really feeling emotions that cheated the whole thing. It made me feel disconnected as Mia which might have been what the writer was going for.
But why didn't the rest of the family break down about Timmy and her parents?