I was in awe of Danielle’s strength of character, and that she could make a conscious decision to turn her life round. In the end Danielle is helped to leave but even then it only works because she has the intelligence to see that the agencies task to help her are only going to do a half arsed job and she must rely on the skills she has to get herself all the way there. I do enjoy memoirs and am very interested in books such as this one, and I was glad that this did not disappoint.

Danielle’s is nothing of the sort and right from the off she is upfront and takes responsibility for her actions. The fact that she led the lifestyle she did and came out the other side while carrying all that emotional baggage shows an incredibly strong woman, a real survivor.As she says at one point -bearing in mind she was 15 at the time-she went from an exploited victim of prolonged sexual assault, to looked down upon child sex worker in the space of 24 hrs. However, after being sexually assaulted by four ‘friends’ her life goes down a path that she struggles to get out of, costing her son in the process. This book gripped me from the get go, partially because the story was so interesting, and also because the narrator was excellent. We have , in effect, been ghettoised and isolated to areas which others-read middles class people and above-see as 'no go' places to visit.

Top Girl is a true story about how Danielle grew up in London surrounded by gangs, crime and addiction. Beginning with a brilliantly constructed sequence, a bait and switch which challenges commonly held misconceptions of children in council flats, run down estates and such, it quickly changes pace to her becoming more socially aware and starting to kick back against authority figures. The trues life story of Danielle Marin, a school kid in London who at the age of 12 is groomed and becomes involved in drug dealing and "gangs". and tried to engage with social services, but if she did do anything like this she didn’t mention it in the book.It was hard not to judge Danielle, especially when it came to Lloyd, because that’s when my emotions turned a little bit to anger.