Review of — The Pen Was Always In Your Hand
B. Lorenzo Buckinchere
Jun 28, 2026
It’s the end of the month, and time once again for our monthly review series. Our muse for the month of June is Maria Rose.
But before we begin, here is a disclaimer.
Disclaimer:
The following review contains spoilers, and is subject to interpretations that may not express the perspectives or intentions of the author. Please read the book in full before reading this, or any other review on the topic.
Without further ado, let’s begin.
Overview:
The pen was always in your hand is a 2024 American memoir by author and screenwriter, Maria Rose. Published by Pure Dreams Productions, LLC., Maria’s memoir is a faith-based chronicle of her personal struggle from overcoming personal obstacles in her life to discovering her niche for writing.
Plot:
In 2010, a 20 year-old Maria had recently taken her toddler daughters, Minerva and Miladys, with her to the Dominican Republic after her husband, Freddie was incarcerated. There she stayed with her in-laws, enduring some of the worst kind of poverty, and nuisances imaginable.
However, her stay in that country was short-lived, and she soon called her sister, LeAnne, to reason with their parents on her behalf to book her ticket back home to Virginia. At least there, she can get welfare for her and her babies.
Once she was back home, she stayed with her parents for awhile, and soon got a 9 to 5 job. Facing deportation upon completing his sentence, Maria contacted an attorney to represent Freddie.
Domino, the attorney in question, was very cordial, and was even willing to represent Freddie for free. But instead of being grateful and co-operative, Freddie chose to argue with his attorney, and accuse him of having an affair with Maria.
Freddie’s increasing insecurities were frequently peppered with verbal disrespect over the phone from prison. After he argued with his attorney, Maria gradually began falling out of love with him.
During this time, she was also battling bulimia. Domino told her that if she ever wanted to get a divorce, he’s willing to represent her for free.
She soon answered a Craigslist ad for a reality TV show in Los Angeles, and was contacted by a man named Freddy. Freddy flew her and one of her neighbors out to LA, but he kept postponing the production date for the pilot, and it wasn’t long before she realized that there was never going to be a show.
Nonetheless, she and Freddy soon started dating despite still being married to Freddie at the time. She told Freddie that she’d finally gotten him back for a past misdeed that was far more indiscriminate than any verbal abuse over the phone.
Maria’s relationship with Freddy was short-lived, however, and she soon sold the car he bought her and flew back home.
Once she was back home in Virginia, Maria contacted Domino and asked him if the offer still stands, and he said yes. Before long, Maria soon met Papi, an Italian chef who lived five hours away.
She was so smitten with Papi, that she drove all of five hours to bring him some soup while he was at work one day. Long distance dating had proven too much for them both, so they broke up one day after she made his bed, and he remade it due to a folding preference she wasn’t aware of.
Maria had an unpublished manuscript on her laptop, and was soon contacted by her friend, AJ, a record producer who offered to publish it for her independently. Soon, she had her first published book.
I believe it was around this time that her sister, LeAnne, became pregnant with her daughter, Merica, and developed a mental illness that led her to steal Maria’s laptop. Her parents also lost their beloved home during this time, leading them all to live in separate homes.
When it rains, it pours!
Maria took her daughters with her to stay with AJ where they started dating. Maria soon became pregnant with her third child while living with AJ, and revealed the news to him on his birthday.
He wasn’t all that thrilled about the news, and he ended up disrespecting her rather egregiously one night during a drunken rant.
She left him soon after.
Newly divorced, Maria continued writing and publishing books independently, as well as recording songs, but with minimal success. Jaded with her current job, Maria faked an illness to get out of a work orientation in Philadelphia so she could attend an interview for another job in New York City.
However, the offer had proven too good to be true when she instead encountered a couple of nuts in a lonely hotel room who might have murdered her had it not been for a hotel staffer showing up in the nick of time.
A divorced single-mother of two, Maria remained in contact with AJ, and they eventually got back together. But he ended up disrespecting her again, which led to one of the single greatest quotes in the entire book, spoken by one of her daughters, “Dating an ex is like…”
Then there’s Mark, her brother who moved in with them shortly after she broke up with AJ. He’d gotten into an altercation with unknown assailants at a convenience store late one night, that led to them being trailed in their car. His hot-headed tendencies may have been caused by an accident he suffered some time before that’s worth getting into.
The girls kept in contact with their father after he was released from prison, and subsequently deported back to the Dominican Republic. They spoke about the possibility of going to school over there for a year.
The girls wanted to go, and Maria welcomed the idea. She booked a flight and took them to the D.R. While there, she stayed in a bungalow where she was befriended by La Diosa, the owner of said bungalow.
La Diosa saw something in Maria one night while they were drinking together, because she told her that she “got the sauce.”
Determined to make it as a singer, Maria returned to the U.S. with her sights set on Los Angeles.
Halfway through her memoir, Maria explored several key events during her childhood that proved to be the foundation of her psychological profile, right up to her marriage to Freddie at age 16.
One such event was her friendship with a girl in her class that ended when the girl’s racist father told her she’s not allowed to talk to Black people.
Another event was her excitement over her chance to finally break into a new church dress (or were they shoes). Her first that were neither hand-me-downs, nor purchased from a thrift shop. Only for her sister, LeAnne to somehow ruin them.
Then came her rebellious teen years at the turn of the century.
When she met Freddie in 2004, she was only 14, and he was 18. He worked at the library, but she later discovered that he was actually performing an act of community service.
She also didn’t know that Freddie was an undocumented alien on U.S. soil.
She continued dating Freddie, much to her parents’ disapproval. She soon ran away from home to go shack-up with him at his aunt’s house. Then not long after that, she was carrying his child. Her father coerced Freddie into making his daughter an “honest woman.”
Soon, they were exchanging vows at the altar, and if Freddie doesn’t read Maria’s memoir, then he may never know about her “bridezilla meltdown” that took place in the dressing room only a few moments prior. The real marriage began after the honeymoon.
The challenge of being unemployable with one infant on the breast, and another belly on the way had proven quite the daunting task. Freddie’s friend, Moe, had gotten him a job off the books at a cable company. But that job was short-lived after they’d gotten into an argument.
Then it wasn’t much longer after that when Moe had come to Freddie with another offer, one that led to his subsequent arrest.
Then Maria discovered a dirty little secret involving one of her in-laws, and vowed revenge if it was the last thing she did.
In 2017, with the girls living in the D.R. with their father, and Maria alone in Los Angeles, she finally had the time and mental bandwidth to pursue her life-long passion.
However, it all came crashing down when the girls phoned Maria to say that Freddie’s new girlfriend, Ana, was killed the night before in a car accident.
Freddie wasn’t taking it very well, so Maria had to leave her job, and her dream, to go be there for them in the D.R. When she took the girls back to the states, she ended up back in Virginia where she first started.
But this time, Maria was determined.
Sometime towards the end, her friend, AJ, called her from prison to apologize for the way he’d treated her in the past. Then the very next day, he suffered a brain aneurysm, and died. He was slated for release from prison on that day, and it was unclear whether or not he’d actually made it out of prison before he died.
The following year on the anniversary of AJ’s death, Maria was retried for a second DUI charge a year after she thought it was resolved. She was sentenced to 21 days in prison during the pandemic, where she suffered the most humbling experience of her life.
In 2023, with titles such as “Son of a Preach” under her belt, Maria was now an accomplished writer. Her sights set on California, she asked her daughters how they felt about moving back to Los Angeles. But one of them suggested San Diego instead, suggesting it is more family oriented.
I can personally vouch for that.
In San Diego, Maria started penning her memoir, released on December 2, 2024, proving after all, that the pen was indeed in her hand.
Review:
Maria seems just as masochistic as any religious zealot you can expect. After continuous dating throughout much of her twenties, she currently lives a life of celibacy because like most christians, she fears that some kind of “poverty demon” will jump on her through sexual contact.
If you wanna be celibate, do so because the thought of being sex-less genuinely brings you pleasure. Not because you think it will make god angry. If god was a loving being, it would want you to be happy.
You only live once!
Not only that, but her P.234 confession sounded like a damn good acid trip if you asked me. Whatever this chick was on, I totally need to try it.
On the other hand, Maria also seems to be a risk-taker, almost to a fault. Throughout the tale, she often changed cities based on craigslist ads for jobs and apartments that could only be verified upon her arrival.
Then there’s her former DWI habit along with her admirable, yet daring tendency to drive on a suspended license. I would like to believe that she doesn’t do that anymore. Perhaps uber wasn’t as popular back in 2012.
And finally, there’s the issue of her sending her children away to live in a completely different country with their father and people he knows who are strangers. Something I could never do in a million years, childless as I am.
But she also seems to have a supportive family who ultimately respects her choices as a grown woman despite their differences, and that kind of positive reinforcement can really boost your confidence.
On another note, correct me if I’m wrong, but I often wonder whether or not her friend, AJ, suffered his aneurysm due to being incarcerated.
For context, he was arrested on drug related charges. And I would much rather speculate that those charges are more so on the side of him using, versus selling, which would explain a lot of his erratic behavior throughout the tale.
But anyhow, being in prison must have kept him from using, and did so in a rather abrupt manner. Which is not safe. You’re supposed to wean them off the stuff, not yank them off it.
So the yanking, coupled with the depression from being incarcerated may well have led to his aneurysm.
There needs to be more thorough medical research in how inmates with drug habits should be treated. The stuff should be legally administered to them under medical supervision, and in increasingly smaller doses until they are freely and safely off the stuff. And there needs to be a 90 day medical follow-up.
Unfortunately, uncle Sam doesn’t seem to believe that the life of an inmate is worth the millions of dollars it might cost to maintain the safe and efficient healthcare processes it would take in order to ensure the success of such a project.
But I am using this opportunity to advocate for worthwhile research to be conducted.
Overall, this memoir is a positive inspiration that serves to encourage the reader to pursue their passion. I give this one a 3 out of 5 silver filigree pens, and I’ll see you on the next one.
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