The stories of the central characters are directly based on interviews that Silverbush and Skolnik conducted with young women at the Hudson County Juvenile Detention Center in Secaucus.

[1] Silverbush said, "Once we started working with the girls in the jail, we realized there was no way we could limit ourselves to one character and do justice to the huge range of experiences that make up the lives of inner-city kids.

[6] The site’s critics consensus reads, "With powerful lead performances, this gritty docudrama about the desperate lives of three young women in Jersey City packs an emotional wallop.

"[7] Writing for The Village Voice, Laura Sinagra commented "the environment feels real: the accents, the snaps, the working moms and warehouse crack nooks, every dilapidated stairwell, every bodega and lovingly appointed teenage bedroom sanctuary.

Club calling the cast's performances "fearless" and "evocative", writing "When Marte howls in cornered anguish, or Mendoza weeps after a visitation with her baby, their honest, raw pain communicates more about the dead-end misery of poverty than a dozen neatly manufactured conclusions ever could.

"[11] Nick Schager of Slant wrote, "Documentarians by trade, the directors use rough DV cinematography and no score to amplify their tale’s sense of lived-in reality, and though their staging can be stilted (such as a third-act scuffle that leads to unexpected tragedy), there’s a hardened emotional honesty that permeates even the most schematic moments.