YA book review: Allegedly by Tiffany D. Jackson

Allegedly by Tiffany D. Jackson

Mary Addison has been in jail since she was just nine years old. That’s when she murdered a three month old baby. Allegedly. Mary and her mom, both African American, were babysitting the white infant Alyssa Richardson when the baby died.

Since then, Mary has been called a demon child, a monster, a psychopathic baby-killer. Most of Mary’s childhood after Alyssa died was spent in solitary confinement, since the prison system wasn’t ready to handle a nine year old murderer. Now 15, Mary is in a group home where everyone knows what she did. Allegedly. Her ‘celebrity’ status earns her the ire of fellow teen girls in the home.

Mary has spent years not saying anything to anyone. But she has begun talking to some people, and then Mary finds inspiration to really use her voice. For the first time since her trial, she decides it’s time to speak up about what actually happened. We as readers begin to suspect that a great injustice might have been done.

The story is told through Mary’s perspective, along with interspersed detective interviews, book excerpts, and news stories.

Author Tiffany Jackson weaves a suspenseful tale that pulls readers along as we dig for the answer to a number of powerful questions, including whether Mary is really to blame for the baby’s murder. Race, privilege, and class all play roles in this intricate story, and the question of how things might’ve played out differently if Mary was white rather than black plays at the edges of this tense story.  The knife-twist of an ending is likely one that few readers will expect.