[4] Since her retirement, she has sharply criticised Australian police, claiming they are "mainly white, dominated by men, and built on systemic racism, misogyny, homophobia, and bullying.

Meriki Onus in Australian Book Review called it "an enthralling book" and "a beautiful story of survival and family,"[8] and Jessie Tu in The Sydney Morning Herald declared that it "astonishes with its degree of truth, trauma and resilience" and that it "should be mandatory reading material for all emerging and current cops".

[9] Meanwhile, in a more negative review in Kill Your Darlings, Fernanda Dahlstrom remarked that "[g]reater exploration of how she came to abolitionism, and some signposting of where the story was going, would have strengthened this account of her struggle with racism and disadvantage from both sides of the law.

[11] In July 2004 her partner left her, and she for safety reasons moved across central Queensland until the family landed in Brisbane, where they spent ten years while Nayuka was as an adolescent.

[13] It was also nominated for that year's Victorian Premier's Prize for Nonfiction, but lost to Amani Haydar's The Mother Wound.