I first want to say that I know this is a middle grade book, but I just can't picture a 12 year old reading this and coming out saying they liked it.
Don't get me wrong, the premise sounded really cool. A 12 year old girl living at a prison with her dad, the warden, and being cared for by a "trustee", aka one of the inmates. Her adventures with hanging out with some of the women prisoners and even a "famous" child killer comes to the prison, with the result of protests breaking out in front of the prison. (But nothing really came of the prisoners. And it just wasn't exciting as I thought it was going to be.) But not even halfway through I started to get really bored.
Going into this I thought it would be fun and light but I was just bored. I didn't like Cammie. I felt for her at times when she was sad or felt lonely but she was moody ALL THE TIME. She would run out and rage and act out against her caregivers and her "friends" and it just got really tiring fast.
And on top of that, it didn't feel like there even was a plot. It was just a bunch of little events that made Cammie say "woe is me" thrown together and called a book. Though, there was a very loose premise of Cammie wanting a mom and missing her mom, but that's the closest thing there was to a plot. The ending did wrap that up a little, though, but it just wasn't enough to make me like it.