Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents show up unsuccessfully seeking his Pa at his New York City bodega. Mateo’s life is turned upside down the day U.S. This grittily provocative debut explores the horrors of self-harm and the healing power of artistic expression.Ī Mexican American boy takes on heavy responsibilities when his family is torn apart. Like most issue books, this is not an easy read, but it's poignant and transcendent as Charlie breaks more and more before piecing herself back together. Through intense, diarylike chapters chronicling Charlie's journey, the author captures the brutal and heartbreaking way 'girls who write their pain on their bodies' scar and mar themselves, either succumbing or surviving.

Feeling rejected, Charlie, an artist, is drawn into a destructive new relationship with her sexy older co-worker, a 'semifamous' local musician who's obviously a junkie alcoholic. But things don't go as planned in the Arizona desert, because sweet Mikey just wants to be friends.

After spending time in treatment with other young women like her-who cut, burn, poke, and otherwise hurt themselves-Charlie is released and takes a bus from the Twin Cities to Tucson to be closer to Mikey, a boy she 'like-likes' but who had pined for Ellis instead. 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. 14 & up)Īfter surviving a suicide attempt, a fragile teen isn't sure she can endure without cutting herself.

The novel is rich with detail, and both the Brooklyn and Paris settings provide important grounding for the haunting and beautifully told story. Andi is brilliantly realized, complete and complex. Printz Honor winner Donnelly combines compelling historical fiction with a frank contemporary story. Soon, Alex’s life and struggles become as real and as painful for Andi as her own troubled life. But when she finds the 200-year-old diary of another teen, Alexandrine Paradis, she is plunged into the chaos of the French Revolution. She resists accompanying her work-obsessed father to Paris, especially after he places her mentally fragile mother in a hospital, but once there works in earnest on her senior thesis about an 18th-century French musician. Despite her brilliance, she has not been able to focus on anything except music since the death of her younger brother, which pushed the difficulties in her family to the breaking point. Andi Alpers, a 17-year-old music lover, is about to be expelled from her elite private school.

Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly