Seventeen-year-old Charlie Davis, a white girl living on the margins, thinks she has little reason to live: her father drowned himself her bereft and abusive mother kicked her out her best friend, Ellis, is nearly brain dead after cutting too deeply and she's gone through unspeakable experiences living on the street. YA)Īfter surviving a suicide attempt, a fragile teen isn't sure she can endure without cutting herself. Authors’ biographies and discussion questions are appended. There’s a striking juxtaposition between Lauren Myracle’s hilarious tall tale about a homecoming queen’s chin hair that grows to Rapunzel-like proportions, and Louise Hawes’s raw, tender chronicle about a 12-year-old who views a forbidden freak show in the 1950s. Chris Lynch presents another gem that features a confident blend of humor and pathos as a boy flirts with the unseen nurse who cares for him after he breaks his back. Tim Wynne Jones’s literary narrative about a physically small yet brilliant teen’s heart-wrenching encounter with a suicidal beauty is a standout. While some of the tales have thematic and plot similarities (there’s a couple, for instance, in which girls use their looks to separate from their mothers), it boasts depth and range. Combining contributions from established veterans and newcomers, this appealing anthology, with its baker’s dozen of stories about beauty-a topic often on the minds of youth-offers a broad perspective.

Such a Pretty Face by Ann Angel