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. Poetically fluid descriptions of Willow’s emotions and her surroundings bolster the sometimes-uneven first-person narrative.Ī beautiful and unforgettable story about a girl who learns she must lose who she thought she was before she can become who she’s meant to beĪfter surviving a suicide attempt, a fragile teen isn't sure she can endure without cutting herself. Women in their infinite variety are celebrated: Willow sees her “thick” wrists and ankles as an asset she recalls the golden hairs on her mother’s face as beautiful and one of the circus members is a charismatic trans woman named Delilah. The story never romanticizes homelessness it’s represented as the harsh reality it is. When the circus comes to town, Willow auditions and goes on the road, leaving lost soul Suz behind. But Suz takes Willow into her squat, feeds her, and teaches her how to juggle-and eat-fire. When the young women meet again, Willow is understandably untrusting.

When she befriends homeless street performer Suz, a “tanned skinned, yellow-dreadlocked” Australian, Willow trusts the wrong person and ends up penniless. With her gap-year savings buried deep in the lining of her bag, 17-year-old Willow reinvents herself as Frog, circus performer. Wanting to feel connected to her estranged, circus-performer mother, Willow decides she, too, will join the circus.

Willow has everything except what she really wants: her millionaire father’s attention. Part-Romanian, “dark as a gypsy” Willow Stephens has been raised by nannies and posh boarding schools.

The Island by Olivia Levez