Crossroads, Inc. – Andrew Adams

3.5 stars

A life insurance company that will pay you money before you die sounds like a great idea, right? They’ll help you get out of poverty and improve your quality of life! You may lose bits of yourself in the process, but hey, at least you’ll have money!

Crossroads, Inc. is an excellent example of if it sounds too good to be true then it probably is. While free money sounds great, there’s always a price to pay somewhere, as the citizens of poverty-stricken Glanton soon found out. But it also brings up an interesting question of what would you be willing to do, to sacrifice, if it would help your family and ease their burdens?

I can’t decide if this story is more horrifying or terribly sad. Reading as Hannah’s family struggled just to get by and slowly succumbing to the brew ans the manipulations of Samuel Sterling was hard, doubly so knowing that even now there are people who would have no choice but to go to Crossroads if such a place existed here.

The story did get a little repetitive for me in the middle. It didn’t seem like much was happening overall except very similar situations, then everything picked back up for the grand finale. I wish the action had been spread out a little bit more so I could better feel the build up to the big reveal of Sterling’s real intentions.

All in all, this was an interesting read! For me, Colin really stole the show even though he was more of a supporting character. His self-awareness and the way that he was supportive of Hannah throughout the book really stood out to me and made him shine as a character.