As a piece of fiction I would have given this book a higher score but it is supposedly a true story and I'm not buying that for a minute. Everything worked out too pat to be true. I was very happy to learn that others had questioned the book's authenticity. I know an author takes artistic license on some things when writing a book and that is fine. Those authors are up front with it in a statement telling the reader so. Carcaterra crossed the line by saying the story was true. He could have said it was an extrapolation of his childhood experiences or said it was based loosely on his own personal experiences and that would have been fine with me.