Boundless

by Lexie Ray

There are shadows to every light, and lights to every shadow. No one is pure good, and no one is pure evil.

But when Mama is thrown into prison after being convicted and sentenced for her role in the nightclub she owned, she enters lockdown confused, hurting, and desperate. Driven by her thirst for booze and greed for money, Mama drives away everyone, leaving her only son to fend for himself at a young age. Her life up until now had been a series of bad mistakes, shaky alliances in the criminal underworld, and a devotion to the bottle that was only rivaled by her devotion to money.

All Mama has to her name now is time — and lots of it. Through the help of other women who used to be broken, she starts to put the pieces back together, navigating the twists and turns of prison while reaching out to her son and his wife on the outside to try to make amends.

However, it isn’t until she’s given her freedom that she realizes just how much she doesn’t have. Her son can barely look at her, and her daughter-in-law is ravaged by a sickness that Mama isn’t sure she can solve. In the end, though, a mother’s love knows no bounds, and Mama does what she must to redeem herself to her son.

133 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 7, 2014

Reviews

[--karen Green-berry · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was prepared to dislike Mama's story and wondered how she could redeem herself, since she was such a despicable character in the other books. This is my least favorite story in the series, I found a lot of her walk towards redemption was repetitive and boring for me. She had hurt so many people including her son who was abandoned, and in the end she did a selfless act but I did not feel the same emotions that I felt with the other stories.

[Erika · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mama's story. It's a good book in the sense that is well written, the story is fluid and there's character development and growth, but what I didn't like is that I felt like they were trying to make Mama more likeable, even if the more you knew about her, the more you hated her. I know there's people there that can relate to her, and even understand where she is coming from, but for me, many of her actions, even at the end, were very selfish. At the end you could say she redeemed herself, but even if what she did was good, I don't think it was enough.

Mama is a character that at first we weren't sure if we misunderstood or if she was really as bad as she looked, but as the series progressed we realized that she was indeed as bad as she seemed. In this book I feel like they try to redeem her, and I didn't appreciate it, I like my villains to remain villains, and I felt like she never truly understood what she had done to others and expected too much of them.

Mama left her house at an early age, all she wanted to do was drink and make money. Her son was just a bother that she didn't want to deal with, so she left him and went looking for something else, it was then that the idea of her nightclub started to take form. With the help of a local gangster she managed to start the club. Apparently since then she had a big drinking problem, and a money obsession. She really thought she was helping the girls, and convinced herself that what she was doing was right, even as she started to think of the money they made as hers, she thought that everything in the club was hers, including the girls.

She was very surprised to be sent to jail, and at first she thought it was all just a mistake, but as she was forced to acknowledge her drinking problem, and sobriety forced her to face reality. In jail she starts AA and starts recognizing that while she was drunk she did bad things. Then she starts reaching to people she hurt, like the girls from the club and her son. Her daughter-in-law is very receptive, but her son doesn't want anything to do with her. She starts calling some of the girls and asking for forgiveness, but she is surprised that some of them cry at her voice or act as if they are afraid of her, because she never realized that practically forcing some of them to sleep with men and then not giving them the money they earned could have affected some of them. She finally leaves jail, and goes to live with her son and his wife, because his wife, for some reason, thinks that Mama is some kind of saint and that her son should forgive the fact that she never gave a damn about him and abandoned him and give the woman who destroyed dozens of lives another chance. Mama wants to make amends to her son, and forgets all about the part that says that you should make amends, EXCEPT when to do so would injure them or others. So she keeps trying to show her son that she is a changed person, not caring how he feels about her of how much he hates to have her there.

When she finally gets the idea that she is not welcome, after weeks of her son telling her he doesn't want her there, her daughter-in-law gets sick, and they take her to the hospital. She asks for her to stay at the house while she is at the hospital, and Mama starts spending time with her there while her son is working. At the end, they need a new heart for her, and when everything seems to be lost, Mama decides to kill herself so they can use her heart, giving her son his wife back. So Mama's heart keeps living in her daughter-in-law's body, and she finally shows her son how much she loves him.

[Pixie Honey · Rating 2 out of 5]

This felt like an attempt to make a villain sympathetic. Mama's history of drinking and prostitution is used as though it excuses everything, and she's not truly forced to confront all the ones she hurt.

While she does go through AA, and works on apologizing to her girls, there's countless ones who either she never contacts, or who are triggered by her calling them.

She also seems to fully think that her son will welcome her with open arms once she's released from prison, simply because his wife has done so.

Even the ending feels almost like she simply gave up trying to make amends, and decided 'Well I might as well die, then my daughter in law can have my heart and they can't say anything bad about me without feeling like awful people'

[GreenEyedTigerCub Harrison · Rating 3 out of 5]

After reading the rest of the runaway series I rated the majority of them 5 stars so I was hoping this would be a perfect closure to the series.

I just found this too high school for a jail novel, I feel many a times things could have been taken further, what happened to the first room mate when she was sent away? why did 'T' give up so easily when told no? I thought as they were in jail these people would have had vendettas against Mama and tried to make her life hell, also I felt that the nightclub girls just made it too easy 'oh yeah you have ruined my life but this phone call makes everything ok' I thought there would have been more anger from them. Even at the end after this great sacrifice 'M' makes everything forgiven (though it was a huge sacrifice) after Mama abandoned him on purpose.
I did enjoy the book, it made me feel hence the 3 stars but it really was just too high school for me.

[Tahira Tillery · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh mama!

I was so not giving a damn about mama's story. But I read the reviews and decided to give it a go. I don't regret it. It was wonderful. Please if you've read the other runaway books this is worth the money.

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a brilliantly written, thought provoking story, that flows well and makes you want to read on and on. The story narration is not dissimilar to Jodi Picoult ' writing style and I will look out for more by the same author. My only gripe is that it is just not long enough!

[Lizzie Winns · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book, it made u look at MaMa differently. She had a hard life just like the girls did in her brothel. I loved how the book ended. Much love to mama.

[Kellie Read · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved it, just what this series needed, the story out if the monsters mouth!!! Well wort it, put a ending to a really good series!!!

[Carla · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. It did seem repetitive as one reviewer said, but I was eager for Mama's story and happy the way it turned out. Good end of the series.

[Lyndaa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it! Emotional ending to the Runaway series