Mary's Innocence In Reading Allegegencies By Tiffany Jackson

Imagine the tiny, frail body of a three-month-old infant, and then think about shoving pills down its throat to silence its ongoing cries. Allegedly, a nine-year-old girl did just that. Reading Allegedly by Tiffany Jackson, the reader falls into Mary, the main character’s web. The now sixteen-year-old, pregnant with her own child, but still in the system, desperately craves a new life, away from the one she has. Convicted of killing Alyssa, an infant she was supposed to be babysitting with her mother, she struggles to keep her own baby. The largest trial upon doing so comes in the form of convincing everyone of the “true” events that took place that night. The trail of deceit she creates entangles almost everyone, maybe even herself. Mary rebuts the argument of her guiltiness by overwhelming others with her supposed “innocence”, yet Mary’s true, dark colors, that of a psychopath,

Mary knows with certainty that without bringing up her case again and fighting it, she will never be able to keep her own child. The narrative that Mary opens up with appears and sounds compelling, realistic, and shines a light on her innocence. Afterwards, the reader finds out only vague parts of the story were remotely true and was made in a vain effort to change her fate. Mary convinced many of those close to her that she was wrongly accused and only protecting her mother. “He doesn’t think I killed Alyssa. No one does now. That’s what happens when you’re a good liar,”(Jackson 384). Playing everyone, she encountered situations that hindered her plans, but with the information the reader gets at the end, is it too crazy to think some of them had been thought through by her? “Funny how things don’t always work out the way you want them to, but so long as you get what you want in the end, the other things don’t seem all that bad,”(Jackson