books tagged “Child Abuse”

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Alice Walker
by Alice Walker

ISBN 0671922548 (0-671-92254-8)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster

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- Alice Walker: ISBN 0671922548 (0-671-92254-8)
  Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
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Bastard Out of Carolina
by Dorothy Allison

ISBN 0452269571 (0-452-26957-1)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA

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Book summary:
Greenville County, South Carolina, a wild, lush place, is home to the Boatwright familyrough-hewn men who drink hard and shoot up each other's trucks, and indomitable women who marry young and age all too quickly. At the heart of this astonishing novel is Ruth Anne Boatwright, known simply as Bone, a South Carolina bastard with an annotated birth certificate to tell the tale. Observing everything with the mercilessly keen eye of a child, Bone finds herself caught in a family triangle that will test the loyalty of her mother, Anney. Her stepfather, Daddy Glen, calls Bone "cold as death, mean as a snake, and twice as twisty," yet Anney needs Glen. At first gentle with Bone, Daddy Glen becomes steadily colder and more furiousuntil their final, harrowing encounter, from which there can be no turning back.

[via]
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Before Women Had Wings
by Connie May Fowler

ISBN 0804118906 (0-8041-1890-6)
Softcover, Ballantine Books

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- Before Women Had Wings: ISBN 0804118906 (0-8041-1890-6)
  Softcover, Ballantine Books
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Blood Memory
by Greg Iles

ISBN 0743454154 (0-7434-5415-4)
Softcover, Pocket Star

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Book summary:
Hailed by Dan Brown (The Da Vinci Code) for his "utterly consuming" suspense fiction, New York Times bestselling author Greg Iles melds forensic detail with penetrating insight into the heart of a killer in a southern town.

Some memories live deep in the soul, indelible and dangerous, waiting to be resurrected....Forensic expert "Cat" Ferry is suspended from an FBI task force when the world-class odontologist is inexplicably stricken with panic attacks and blackouts while investigating a chain of brutal murders. Returning to her Mississippi hometown, Cat finds herself battling with alcohol, plagued by nightmares, and entangled with a married detective. Then, in her childhood bedroom, some spilled chemicals reveal two bloody footprints...and the trauma of her father's murder years earlier comes flooding back. Facing the secrets of her past, Cat races to connect them to a killer's present-day violence. But what emerges is the frightening possibility that Cat herself has blood on her hands.... [via]
More editions of Blood Memory:
- Blood Memory: ISBN 0743454154 (0-7434-5415-4)
  Softcover, Pocket Star
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Bluest Eye
by Toni Morrison

ISBN 0307278441 (0-307-27844-1)
Softcover, Vintage Books

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Book summary:
Oprah Book Club® Selection, April 2000: Originally published in 1970, The Bluest Eye is Toni Morrison's first novel. In an afterword written more than two decades later, the author expressed her dissatisfaction with the book's language and structure: "It required a sophistication unavailable to me." Perhaps we can chalk up this verdict to modesty, or to the Nobel laureate's impossibly high standards of quality control. In any case, her debut is nothing if not sophisticated, in terms of both narrative ingenuity and rhetorical sweep. It also shows the young author drawing a bead on the subjects that would dominate much of her career: racial hatred, historical memory, and the dazzling or degrading power of language itself.
Set in Lorain, Ohio, in 1941, The Bluest Eye is something of an ensemble piece. The point of view is passed like a baton from one character to the next, with Morrison's own voice functioning as a kind of gold standard throughout. The focus, though, is on an 11-year-old black girl named Pecola Breedlove, whose entire family has been given a cosmetic cross to bear:
You looked at them and wondered why they were so ugly; you looked closely and could not find the source. Then you realized that it came from conviction, their conviction. It was as though some mysterious all-knowing master had given each one a cloak of ugliness to wear, and they had each accepted it without question.... And they took the ugliness in their hands, threw it as a mantle over them, and went about the world with it.
There are far uglier things in the world than, well, ugliness, and poor Pecola is subjected to most of them. She's spat upon, ridiculed, and ultimately raped and impregnated by her own father. No wonder she yearns to be the very opposite of what she is--yearns, in other words, to be a white child, possessed of the blondest hair and the bluest eye.
This vein of self-hatred is exactly what keeps Morrison's novel from devolving into a cut-and-dried scenario of victimization. She may in fact pin too much of the blame on the beauty myth: "Along with the idea of romantic love, she was introduced to another--physical beauty. Probably the most destructive ideas in the history of human thought. Both originated in envy, thrived in insecurity, and ended in disillusion." Yet the destructive power of these ideas is essentially colorblind, which gives The Bluest Eye the sort of universal reach that Morrison's imitators can only dream of. And that, combined with the novel's modulated pathos and musical, fine-grained language, makes for not merely a sophisticated debut but a permanent one. --James Marcus [via]
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The Bone People
by Keri Hulme

ISBN 1417702931 (1-4177-0293-1)
Hardcover, Bt Bound

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Book summary:
In a tower on the New Zealand sea lives Kerewin Holmes, part Maori, part European, an artist estranged from her art, a woman in exile from her family. One night her solitude is disrupted by a visitora speechless, mercurial boy named Simon, who tries to steal from her and then repays her with his most precious possession. As Kerewin succumbs to Simon's feral charm, she also falls under the spell of his Maori foster father Joe, who rescued the boy from a shipwreck and now treats him with an unsettling mixture of tenderness and brutality. Out of this unorthodox trinity Keri Hulme has created what is at once a mystery, a love story, and an ambitious exploration of the zone where Maori and European New Zealand meet, clash, and sometimes merge.
Winner of both a Booker Prize and Pegasus Prize for Literature, The Bone People is a work of unfettered wordplay and mesmerizing emotional complexity.
[via]
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A Brother's Journey: Surviving a Childhood of Abuse
by Richard Pelzer

ISBN 0446696331 (0-446-69633-1)
Softcover, Wellness Central

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Book summary:
- A Brother's Journey will appeal to the same audience that made #1 New York Times bestsellers of Dave Pelzer's popular novels: A Child Called "It" (Health Communications, 1995), The Lost Boy (Health Communications, 1997), and A Man Named Dave (E.P. Dutton, 1999), which have sold over six million copies combined. - There is a strong market for memoirs detailing traumatic experiences, as demonstrated by the success of A Million Little Pieces (Nan A. Talese, 4/03) and Running With Scissors (St. Martin's Press, 2002). - Subsidiary rights have already been sold in England and Japan. - Available as a Time Warner AudioBook. [via]
More editions of A Brother's Journey: Surviving a Childhood of Abuse:
- A Brother's Journey: Surviving A Childhood Of Abuse: ISBN 0446533688 (0-446-53368-8)
  Hardcover, Grand Central Pub
- A Brother's Journey: Surviving a Childhood of Abuse: ISBN 0446696331 (0-446-69633-1)
  Softcover, Wellness Central
The Child Called It
by David J. Pelzer

ISBN 0929099028 (0-929099-02-8)
Softcover, Maun Lemke

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More editions of The Child Called It:
- The Child Called It: ISBN 0929099028 (0-929099-02-8)
  Softcover, Maun Lemke
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A Child Called "It": One Child's Courage to Survive
by Dave Pelzer

ISBN 1558743669 (1-55874-366-9)
Softcover, Hci

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Book summary:
David J. Pelzer's mother, Catherine Roerva, was, he writes in this ghastly, fascinating memoir, a devoted den mother to the Cub Scouts in her care, and somewhat nurturant to her children--but not to David, whom she referred to as "an It." This book is a brief, horrifying account of the bizarre tortures she inflicted on him, told from the point of view of the author as a young boy being starved, stabbed, smashed face-first into mirrors, forced to eat the contents of his sibling's diapers and a spoonful of ammonia, and burned over a gas stove by a maniacal, alcoholic mom. Sometimes she claimed he had violated some rule--no walking on the grass at school!--but mostly it was pure sadism. Inexplicably, his father didn't protect him; only an alert schoolteacher saved David. One wants to learn more about his ordeal and its aftermath, and now he's written a sequel, The Lost Boy, detailing his life in the foster-care system.
Though it's a grim story, A Child Called "It" is very much in the tradition of Chicken Soup for the Couple's Soul and the many books in that upbeat series, whose author Pelzer thanks for helping get his book going. It's all about weathering adversity to find love, and Pelzer is an expert witness. [via]
More editions of A Child Called "It": One Child's Courage to Survive:
- A Child Called "It": One Child's Courage to Survive: ISBN 1558743669 (1-55874-366-9)
  Softcover, Hci
The Color Purple
by Alice Walker

ISBN 1568496281 (1-56849-628-1)
Hardcover, Buccaneer Books

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Book summary:
Celie is a poor black woman whose letters tell the story of 20 years of her life, beginning at age 14 when she is being abused and raped by her father and attempting to protect her sister from the same fate, and continuing over the course of her marriage to "Mister," a brutal man who terrorizes her. Celie eventually learns that her abusive husband has been keeping her sister's letters from her and the rage she feels, combined with an example of love and independence provided by her close friend Shug, pushes her finally toward an awakening of her creative and loving self. [via]
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Flowers in the Attic
by V. C. Andrews

ISBN 1416510885 (1-4165-1088-5)
Softcover, Pocket Books

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More editions of Flowers in the Attic:
- Flowers in the Attic: ISBN 0816134286 (0-8161-3428-6)
  Hardcover, Thorndike Pr
- Flowers in the Attic: ISBN 1416510885 (1-4165-1088-5)
  Softcover, Pocket Books
Ghost Girl
by Torey L. Hayden

ISBN 038071681X (0-380-71681-X)
Softcover, Avon Books

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Book summary:
Jadie never spoke. She never laughed, or cried, or uttered any sound. Despite efforts to reach her, Jadie remained locked in her own troubled worlduntil one remarkable teacher persuaded her to break her self-imposed silence. Nothing in all of Torey Hayden's experience could have prepared her for the shock of what Jadie told hera story too horrendous for Torey's professional colleagues to acknowledge. Yet a little girl was living in a nightmare, and Torey Hayden responded in the only way she knew howwith courage, compassion, and dedicationdemonstrating once again the tremendous power of love and the relilience of the human spirit.
[via]
More editions of Ghost Girl:
- Ghost Girl: ISBN 0316351679 (0-316-35167-9)
  Hardcover, Little Brown & Co
- Ghost Girl: ISBN 038071681X (0-380-71681-X)
  Softcover, Avon Books
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I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
by Maya Angelou

ISBN 0808510576 (0-8085-1057-6)
Hardcover, Bt Bound

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Book summary:
In this first of five volumes of autobiography, poet Maya Angelou recounts a youth filled with disappointment, frustration, tragedy, and finally hard-won independence. Sent at a young age to live with her grandmother in Arkansas, Angelou learned a great deal from this exceptional woman and the tightly knit black community there. These very lessons carried her throughout the hardships she endured later in life, including a tragic occurrence while visiting her mother in St. Louis and her formative years spent in California--where an unwanted pregnancy changed her life forever. Marvelously told, with Angelou's "gift for language and observation," this "remarkable autobiography by an equally remarkable black woman from Arkansas captures, indelibly, a world of which most Americans are shamefully ignorant." [via]
More editions of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings:
- I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings: ISBN 0808510576 (0-8085-1057-6)
  Hardcover, Bt Bound
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I know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Blooms Guides)
by Harold Bloom

ISBN 0791077683 (0-7910-7768-3)
Softcover, Facts on File

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More editions of I know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Blooms Guides):
- I know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Blooms Guides): ISBN 0791077683 (0-7910-7768-3)
  Softcover, Facts on File
If There Be Thorns
by V. C. Andrews

ISBN 0743467248 (0-7434-6724-8)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster

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More editions of If There Be Thorns:
- If There Be Thorns: ISBN 0743467248 (0-7434-6724-8)
  Softcover, Simon & Schuster
Just Another Kid
by Torey L. Hayden

ISBN 0380705648 (0-380-70564-8)
Softcover, Avon Books

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Book summary:
A dramatic and remarkable narrative of an extraordinary teacher's determination, from the author of the Sunday Times bestsellers 'The Tiger's Child' and 'One Child'. Torey Hayden faced six emotionally troubled kids no other teacher could handle -- three recent arrivals from battle-torn Northern Ireland, badly traumatised by the horrors of war; an eleven-year-old boy, who only knew life inside an institution; an excitable girl, aggressive and sexually precocious at the age of eight; and seven-year-old Leslie, perhaps the most hopeless of all, unresponsive and unable to speak. But Torey's most daunting challenge turns out to be Leslie's mother, a stunning young doctor who soon discovers that she needs Torey's love and help just as much as the children. 'Just Another Kid' is a beautiful illustration of nurturing concern, not only for a few emotionally disturbed children, but for one woman facing a personal battle. [via]
More editions of Just Another Kid:
- Just Another Kid: ISBN 0399133038 (0-399-13303-8)
  Hardcover, Putnam Pub Group
- Just Another Kid: ISBN 0380705648 (0-380-70564-8)
  Softcover, Avon Books
The Killing Kind
by John Connolly

ISBN 0743453344 (0-7434-5334-4)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster

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- The Killing Kind: ISBN 0743453344 (0-7434-5334-4)
  Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
The Lost Boy
by Dave Pelzer

ISBN 0752837648 (0-7528-3764-8)
Softcover, Trafalgar Square

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More editions of The Lost Boy:
- The Lost Boy: ISBN 0929099036 (0-929099-03-6)
  Softcover, Maun Lemke
- The Lost Boy: ISBN 0752837648 (0-7528-3764-8)
  Softcover, Trafalgar Square
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The Lost Boy: A Foster Child's Search for the Love of a Family
by Dave Pelzer

ISBN 1558745157 (1-55874-515-7)
Softcover, Hci

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Book summary:
FOR USE IN SCHOOLS AND LIBRARIES ONLY. The author continues the story of his childhood with abusive parents and his experience being a foster child moved in and out of five different foster homes. [via]
More editions of The Lost Boy: A Foster Child's Search for the Love of a Family:
- The Lost Boy: A Foster Child's Search for the Love of a Family: ISBN 0613173538 (0-613-17353-8)
  Hardcover, Bt Bound
- The Lost Boy: A Foster Child's Search for the Love of a Family: ISBN 1558745157 (1-55874-515-7)
  Softcover, Hci
Man Named Dave
by Dave Pelzer

ISBN 1568951485 (1-56895-148-5)
Softcover, Gale / Cengage Learning

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Book summary:
The third tale in David Pelzer's autobiographical trilogy, A Man Named Dave is an inspiring story of terror, recovery, and hope experienced by the author throughout his life. Known for his work as a child abuse advocate, Pelzer has been commended by several U.S. presidents and international agencies, and his previous memoirs of growing up as an abused child (A Child Called "It" and The Lost Boy) have touched thousands of lives. He provides living proof that we can "stop the cycle" and lead fulfilling, rewarding lives full of healthy relationships. Ultimately triumphant, this book will have you living through the eyes of a terrified child, a struggling young man, and an adult finally forgiving his dying father--reading with tissues nearby is recommended. Ending with a touching conversation between the author and his own son, you'll finish reading this with a warm heart and an enriched understanding of the need for compassion in all parts of life. --Jill Lightner [via]
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Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
by Harold Bloom

ISBN 0791036669 (0-7910-3666-9)
Hardcover, Facts on File

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Book summary:
Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings accomplishes a controlled poignance in representing a portrait of the young artist as a black woman. Her novel is the focus of this edition of Bloom's Notes. Along with a collection of some of the best criticism available on his work, this text includes a brief biography of the author, structural and thematic analysis, an index of themes and ideas, and more. This series is edited by Harold Bloom, Sterling Professor of the Humanities, Yale University; Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Professor of English, New York University Graduate School. These texts are the ideal aid for all students of literature, presenting concise, easy-to-understand biographical, critical, and bibliographical information on a specific literary work. Also provided are multiple sources for book reports and term papers with a wealth of information on literary works, authors, and major characters. [via]
More editions of Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings:
- Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings: ISBN 0791036669 (0-7910-3666-9)
  Hardcover, Facts on File
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Me & Emma
by Elizabeth Flock

ISBN 0778322858 (0-7783-2285-8)
Softcover, Harlequin Books

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Book summary:
The title characters in Me & Emma are very nearly photographic opposites--8-year-old Carrie, the raven-haired narrator, is timid and introverted, while her little sister Emma is a tow-headed powerhouse with no sense of fear. The girls live in a terrible situation: they depend on an unstable mother that has never recovered from her husbands murder, their stepfather beats them regularly, and they must forage on their own for food.
Stop here and you have a story told many times before, as fiction and nonfiction in tales like Ellen Foster, or I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings --stories in which a young girl reveals the horrors of her childhood. Me & Emma differentiates itself with a spectacular finish, shocking the reader and turning the entire story on its head. Through several twists and turns the reader learns that things are not quite the way our narrator led us to believe and everything crescendos in a way that (like all good thrillers) immediately makes you want to go back and read the whole book again from the start. --Victoria Griffith [via]
More editions of Me & Emma:
- Me & Emma: ISBN 0778322858 (0-7783-2285-8)
  Softcover, Harlequin Books
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Me and Emma
by Elizabeth Flock

ISBN 0778320820 (0-7783-2082-0)
Hardcover, Harlequin Enterprises, Limited

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Book summary:
The title characters in Me & Emma are very nearly photographic opposites--8-year-old Carrie, the raven-haired narrator, is timid and introverted, while her little sister Emma is a tow-headed powerhouse with no sense of fear. The girls live in a terrible situation: they depend on an unstable mother that has never recovered from her husbands murder, their stepfather beats them regularly, and they must forage on their own for food.
Stop here and you have a story told many times before, as fiction and nonfiction in tales like Ellen Foster, or I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings --stories in which a young girl reveals the horrors of her childhood. Me & Emma differentiates itself with a spectacular finish, shocking the reader and turning the entire story on its head. Through several twists and turns the reader learns that things are not quite the way our narrator led us to believe and everything crescendos in a way that (like all good thrillers) immediately makes you want to go back and read the whole book again from the start. --Victoria Griffith [via]
More editions of Me and Emma:
- Me and Emma: ISBN 0778320820 (0-7783-2082-0)
  Hardcover, Harlequin Enterprises, Limited
Mysterious Skin
by Scott Heim

ISBN 0060841699 (0-06-084169-9)
Softcover, Harpercollins

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Nobody Nowhere
by Donna Williams

ISBN 0380722178 (0-380-72217-8)
Softcover, Harpercollins

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Book summary:
"This is a story of two battles, a battle to keep out 'the world' and a battle to join it."
She inhabits a place of chaos, cacophony, and dancing light--where physical contact is painful and sights and sounds have no meaning. Although labeled, at times, deaf, retarded, or disturbed, Donna Williams is autistic--afflicted by a baffling condition of heightened sensory perception that imprisons the sufferer in a private, almost hallucinatory universe of patterns and colors. Nobody Nowhere is Donna's story in her own words--a haunting, courageous memoir of the titanic struggles she has endured in her quest to merge "my world" with "the world." [via]
More editions of Nobody Nowhere:
- Nobody Nowhere: ISBN 0385254253 (0-385-25425-3)
  Softcover, Doubleday Canada, Limited
- Nobody Nowhere: ISBN 0380722178 (0-380-72217-8)
  Softcover, Harpercollins
Nobody Nowhere : The Extraordinary Autobiography of an Autistic
by Donna Williams

ISBN 0812920422 (0-8129-2042-2)
Hardcover, Crown Publishing Group

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More editions of Nobody Nowhere : The Extraordinary Autobiography of an Autistic:
- Nobody Nowhere : The Extraordinary Autobiography of an Autistic: ISBN 0812920422 (0-8129-2042-2)
  Hardcover, Crown Publishing Group
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One Child
by Torey L. Hayden

ISBN 0380542625 (0-380-54262-5)
Softcover, Harpercollins Childrens Books

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Book summary:
FOR USE IN SCHOOLS AND LIBRARIES ONLY. Hayden recounts her battle to uncover the emotions and keen intelligence of a troubled, sexually molested six-year-old girl who was placed in a class for retarded preadolescents. [via]
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Perfect Match
by Jodi Picoult

ISBN 0743418735 (0-7434-1873-5)
Softcover, Pocket Books

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More editions of Perfect Match:
- Perfect Match: ISBN 0743418735 (0-7434-1873-5)
  Softcover, Pocket Books
Petals on the Wind
by V. C. Andrews

ISBN 0743467086 (0-7434-6708-6)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster

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More editions of Petals on the Wind:
- Petals on the Wind: ISBN 0816134278 (0-8161-3427-8)
  Hardcover, Thorndike Pr
- Petals on the Wind: ISBN 0743467086 (0-7434-6708-6)
  Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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The Rules of Survival
by Nancy Werlin

ISBN 0803730012 (0-8037-3001-2)
Hardcover, Penguin Group USA

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Book summary:
It all starts when Matthew observes a heroic scene in a convenience store: A man named Murdoch puts himself between an abusive father and his son. Matt is determined to get to know this man. And when, amazingly, Murdoch begins dating Matt's mother, it seems as if life may become peaceful for the first time.
Matt and his sisters have never before known a moment of peace in a household ruled by their unpredictable, vicious mother. And so, after Murdoch inevitably breaks up with her and the short period of family calm is over, Matt sees that he needs to take action. He refuses to let his family remain at risk. Can he call upon his hero, Murdoch? And if not, what might his desperation lead him to do?
A thought-provoking exploration of self-reliance and the nature of evil and a heart-wrenching portrait of a family in crisis, this is Nancy Werlin's most compulsively readable novel yet.
[via]
More editions of The Rules of Survival:
- The Rules of Survival: ISBN 0803730012 (0-8037-3001-2)
  Hardcover, Penguin Group USA
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Running With Scissors: A Memoir
by Augusten Burroughs

ISBN 1417666943 (1-4176-6694-3)
Hardcover, Bt Bound

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Book summary:
There is a passage early in Augusten Burroughs's harrowing and highly entertaining memoir, Running with Scissors, that speaks volumes about the author. While going to the garbage dump with his father, young Augusten spots a chipped, glass-top coffee table that he longs to bring home. "I knew I could hide the chip by fanning a display of magazines on the surface, like in a doctor's office," he writes, "And it certainly wouldn't be dirty after I polished it with Windex for three hours." There were certainly numerous chips in the childhood Burroughs describes: an alcoholic father, an unstable mother who gives him up for adoption to her therapist, and an adolescence spent as part of the therapist's eccentric extended family, gobbling prescription meds and fooling around with both an old electroshock machine and a pedophile who lives in a shed out back. But just as he dreamed of doing with that old table, Burroughs employs a vigorous program of decoration and fervent polishing to a life that many would have simply thrown in a landfill. Despite her abandonment, he never gives up on his increasingly unbalanced mother. And rather than despair about his lot, he glamorizes it: planning a "beauty empire" and performing an a capella version of "You Light Up My Life" at a local mental ward. Burroughs's perspective achieves a crucial balance for a memoir: emotional but not self-involved, observant but not clinical, funny but not deliberately comic. And it's ultimately a feel-good story: as he steers through a challenging childhood, there's always a sense that Burroughs's survivor mentality will guide him through and that the coffee table will be salvaged after all. --John Moe [via]
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Set This House in Order
by Matt Ruff

ISBN 006095485X (0-06-095485-X)
Softcover, Harpercollins

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Book summary:

"I suppose I should tell you about the house.... The house, along with the lake, the forest, and Coventry, are all in Andy Gage's head, or what would have been Andy Gage's head if he had lived. Andy Gage was horn in 1965 and murdered not long after by his stepfather ... It was no ordinary murder.. though the torture and abuse that killed him were real, Andy Gage's death wasn't. Only his soul actually died, and when it died, it broke in pieces. Then the pieces became souls in their own right, coinheritors of Andy Gage's life. . . . "

From the author of the cult classic Fool on the Hill comes a strange and moving story of self-discovery. Andy Gage was "born" just two years ago, called into being to serve as the public face of a multiple personality. While Andy deals with the outside world, more than a hundred other souls share an imaginary house inside Andy's head, struggling to maintain an orderly co-existence: Aaron, the father figure, who makes the rules; Adam, the mischievous teenager, who breaks them; Jake, the frightened little boy; Aunt Sam, the artist; Seferis, the defender; and Gideon, the dark soul, who wants to get rid of Andy and the others and run things on his own.

Andrew's new coworker, Penny Driver, is also a multiple personality -- a fact that Penny is only partially aware of. When several of Penny's other souls ask Andy for help, Andy reluctantly agrees, setting in motion a chain of events that threatens to destroy the stability of the house. Now Andy and Penny must work together to uncover a terrible secret that Andy has been keeping from himself....
[via]
More editions of Set This House in Order:
- Set This House in Order: ISBN 0060195622 (0-06-019562-2)
  Hardcover, Harpercollins
- Set This House in Order: ISBN 006095485X (0-06-095485-X)
  Softcover, Harpercollins
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Sickened: The Memoir of a Munchausen by Proxy Childhood
by Julie Gregory

ISBN 0553803077 (0-553-80307-7)
Hardcover, Bantam Books

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Book summary:
A young girl is perched on the cold chrome of yet another doctors examining table, missing yet another day of school. Just twelve, shes tall, skinny, and weak. Its four oclock, and she hasnt been allowed to eat anything all day. Her mother, on the other hand, seems curiously excited. She's about to suggest open-heart surgery on her child to "get to the bottom of this." She checks her teeth for lipstick and, as the doctor enters, shoots the girl a warning glance. This child will not ruin her plans.

Sickened

From early childhood, Julie Gregory was continually X-rayed, medicated, and operated onin the vain pursuit of an illness that was created in her mothers mind. Munchausen by proxy (MBP) is the worlds most hidden and dangerous form of child abuse, in which the caretakeralmost always the motherinvents or induces symptoms in her child because she craves the attention of medical professionals. Many MBP children die, but Julie Gregory not only survived, she escaped the powerful orbit of her mother's madness and rebuilt her identity as a vibrant, healthy young woman.

Sickened is a remarkable memoir that speaks in an original and distinctive Midwestern voice, rising to indelible scenes in prose of scathing beauty and fierce humor. Punctuated with Julie's actual medical records, it re-creates the bizarre cocoon of her family's isolated double-wide trailer, their wild shopping sprees and gun-waving confrontations, the astonishing naïveté of medical professionals and social workers. It also exposes the twisted bonds of terror and love that roped Julie's family togetherincluding the love that made a child willing to sacrifice herself to win her mother's happiness.

The realization that the sickness lay in her mother, not in herself, would not come to Julie until adulthood. But when it did, it would strike like lightning. Through her painful metamorphosis, she discovered the courage to save her own lifeand, ultimately, the life of the girl her mother had found to replace her. Sickened takes us to new places in the human heart and spirit. It is an unforgettable story, unforgettably told. [via]
More editions of Sickened: The Memoir of a Munchausen by Proxy Childhood:
- Sickened: The Memoir of a Munchausen by Proxy Childhood: ISBN 0553803077 (0-553-80307-7)
  Hardcover, Bantam Books
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Sickened: The True Story of a Lost Childhood
by Julie Gregory, Marc D. Feldman

ISBN 0553381970 (0-553-38197-0)
Softcover, Bantam Dell Pub Group

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Book summary:
A young girl is perched on the cold chrome of yet another doctors examining table, missing yet another day of school. Just twelve, shes tall, skinny, and weak. Its four oclock, and she hasnt been allowed to eat anything all day. Her mother, on the other hand, seems curiously excited. She's about to suggest open-heart surgery on her child to "get to the bottom of this." She checks her teeth for lipstick and, as the doctor enters, shoots the girl a warning glance. This child will not ruin her plans.

Sickened

From early childhood, Julie Gregory was continually X-rayed, medicated, and operated onin the vain pursuit of an illness that was created in her mothers mind. Munchausen by proxy (MBP) is the worlds most hidden and dangerous form of child abuse, in which the caretakeralmost always the motherinvents or induces symptoms in her child because she craves the attention of medical professionals. Many MBP children die, but Julie Gregory not only survived, she escaped the powerful orbit of her mother's madness and rebuilt her identity as a vibrant, healthy young woman.

Sickened is a remarkable memoir that speaks in an original and distinctive Midwestern voice, rising to indelible scenes in prose of scathing beauty and fierce humor. Punctuated with Julie's actual medical records, it re-creates the bizarre cocoon of her family's isolated double-wide trailer, their wild shopping sprees and gun-waving confrontations, the astonishing naïveté of medical professionals and social workers. It also exposes the twisted bonds of terror and love that roped Julie's family togetherincluding the love that made a child willing to sacrifice herself to win her mother's happiness.

The realization that the sickness lay in her mother, not in herself, would not come to Julie until adulthood. But when it did, it would strike like lightning. Through her painful metamorphosis, she discovered the courage to save her own lifeand, ultimately, the life of the girl her mother had found to replace her. Sickened takes us to new places in the human heart and spirit. It is an unforgettable story, unforgettably told.

From the Hardcover edition. [via]
More editions of Sickened: The True Story of a Lost Childhood:
- Sickened: The True Story of a Lost Childhood: ISBN 0553381970 (0-553-38197-0)
  Softcover, Bantam Dell Pub Group
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Somebody Else's Kids
by Torey L. Hayden

ISBN 038059949X (0-380-59949-X)
Softcover, Harpercollins

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Book summary:
"Were all just somebody else's kids . . . "
A small seven-year-old boy who couldn't speak except to repeat weather forecasts and other people's words . . . A beautiful little girl of seven who had been brain damaged by terrible parental beatings and was so ashamed because she couldn't learn to read . . . A violently angry ten-year-old who had seen his stepmother murder his father and had been sent from one foster home to another . . . A shy twelve-year-old from a Catholic school which put her out when she became pregnant . . .
"What do we matter?"
"Why do you care?"
They were four problem children-put in Torey Hayden's class because no one else knew what to do with them. Together, with the help of a remarkable teacher who cared too much to ever give up, they became almost a family, able to give each other the love and understanding they had found nowhere else.
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Sybil
by Flora Rheta Schreiber

ISBN 0446359408 (0-446-35940-8)
Softcover, Grand Central Pub

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Book summary:
FOR USE IN SCHOOLS AND LIBRARIES ONLY. Meet Sybil--and the sixteen selves, both men and women, to whom she played host, each with a different personality, speech pattern, and personal appearance. [via]
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Tale of One Bad Rat
by Bryan Talbot

ISBN 1569710775 (1-56971-077-5)
Softcover, Dark Horse Comics

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More editions of Tale of One Bad Rat:
- Tale of One Bad Rat: ISBN 1569711275 (1-56971-127-5)
  Hardcover, Dark Horse Comics
- Tale of One Bad Rat: ISBN 1569710775 (1-56971-077-5)
  Softcover, Dark Horse Comics
The Tiger's Child
by Torey Hayden

ISBN 0380725444 (0-380-72544-4)
Softcover, Avon Books

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Toni Morrison's the Bluest Eye
by Harold Bloom

ISBN 0791051919 (0-7910-5191-9)
Hardcover, Facts on File

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Book summary:
A child's descent into madness was explored in Eye.
The title, Toni Morrisons The Bluest Eye, part of Chelsea House Publishers Modern Critical Interpretations series, presents the most important 20th-century criticism on Toni Morrisons The Bluest Eye through extracts of critical essays by well-known literary critics. This collection of criticism also features a short biography on Toni Morrison, a chronology of the authors life, and an introductory essay written by Harold Bloom, Sterling Professor of the Humanities, Yale University. [via]
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- Toni Morrison's the Bluest Eye: ISBN 0791051919 (0-7910-5191-9)
  Hardcover, Facts on File
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When Rabbit Howls
by Truddi Chase, Robert A. Phillips

ISBN 0425183319 (0-425-18331-9)
Softcover, Berkley Pub Group

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Book summary:
When Truddi Chase began therapy she was already building a successful career, a marriage, and a family. But what she was seeking most were explanations for her extreme anxiety, mood swings, and periodic blackouts. What finally emerged from the four-year sessions was terrifying: Truddi Chases mind and body were inhabited by the Troopsninety-two individual voices that had rescued her from a shattering childhood of violent, ritualized sexual abuse by her stepfather that began when she was only two. For years the Troops created a world where she could hide from the pain, and be shielded from the truth. It was a world Truddi Chase didnt even know existed, until she and her therapist took a journey to where the nightmare began.
Challenging every preconceived notion of the human mind, When Rabbit Howls is made all the more remarkable in that it was written by the Troops themselvesTruddi Chases story is told by the very alter-egos who stayed with her, watched over her, and protected her. What they reveal is a spellbinding descent into a personal helland an ultimate, triumphant deliverance for the woman they became.
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You Don't Know Me
by David Klass

ISBN 0064473783 (0-06-447378-3)
Softcover, Avon Tempest

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