ALA Booklist (Mon Dec 01 00:00:00 CST 2014)

Seventeen-year-old Charlotte has spent most of her life locked up in an attic with her younger brother, Sam, both of them suffering horrific physical and verbal abuse at the hands of their parents. After her father kills Sam, she finds a way to escape and hires dashing young techie Cam to create a new identity for her. After she meets a young girl, Sandra, a fellow victim, Charlotte is on her way to building a safe family unit, even allowing herself to recognize her attraction to Cam. Johansson's tense psychological thriller calls to mind Emma Donoghue's Room (2010); both feature resilient characters escaping abusive parents who hold them hostage for years, and both stories, moving at a fevered pitch, are likely to keep readers awake all night. However, Charlotte's longing for love and acceptance will also draw and satisfy romance readers, as well as those who appreciate mysteries. Richly developed characters, swift pacing, and a present-tense narrative plunge the reader effectively into the moment, while Johansson's empathy for victims of domestic abuse draws attention to an important issue.

Horn Book

Seventeen-year-old abuse survivor Charlotte (formerly Piper) is starting over in a new city with a new name, but the spectre of brutality follows her as she sets out to save another potential victim--and find love in the process. Melodramatic prose and situations, combined with at times seemingly gratuitous scenes of torture and violence, mar this fast-paced and well-meaning thriller.

School Library Journal (Sat Nov 01 00:00:00 CDT 2014)

Gr 9 Up-In this breathless, melodramatic escape fantasy, a profoundly traumatized teenage girl manages to exorcise her demons, vanquish an evil human trafficker, and find true love. Seventeen-year-old Piper escaped from The Parents, a junky mother and sadistic, abusive father, but she wasn't able to save her little brother, who now lives as a voice in her head. She resides in Philadelphia under an assumed name and identity that she purchased from Cameron, a handsome, devoted, nonthreatening hacker with ties to the Mafia. With her experienced eye, Piper observes an older man and young girl walk through the park, and deduces that the girl is being brutally mistreated in similar ways to what she survived. The protagonist engineers a daring rescue to save the girl, named Sanda, from a life of servitude. Sanda and Piper start trying to build a life together, but Piper is stalked and threatened by Sanda's former abuser, who managed to survive Piper's attack. The teen has to save herself, Sanda, and Cameron from an insane torturer with a fetish for blood. In the acknowledgments, the author gives some background information about human trafficking and her underlying goal to raise awareness about the issue. With over-the-top present-tense narration and dramatic descriptions of torture and human slavery, this novel will appeal to readers with a taste for sensationalism. Kyle Lukoff, Corlears School, New York City

Voice of Youth Advocates

Johansson, author of the paranormal Night Walkers series, which includes Paranoia (Flux, 2014/VOYA June 2014), immerses readers in an urban landscape of sadistic violence against girls and women. Seventeen-year-old Piper begins her tense, first-person narrative upon her arrival in Philadelphia, where she meets a young man, Cam, who can provide her with a fake ID. Piper, now known as Charlotte, wants to begin a new life, but finds herself dragged back into the world of her nightmares when she observes a younger girl in the company of an abusive man. Soon after rescuing Sanda from a basement torture chamber all too reminiscent of her own previous situation, Charlotte begins finding threatening messages addressed to her old name left in her locked apartment by an unknown enemy. Piper is brave and resourceful but also scarred and traumatized by years of physical and emotional abuse from which she has only recently escaped.This novel is not easy to read; restricted to the paranoid, claustrophobic viewpoint of its damaged narrator, one shares every twitch of panic experienced by Piper as she negotiates a hostile and frightening world. Piper's distrust is especially painful in her relationship with Cam, who begins as an identity forger with whom Piper transacts business but gradually becomes a friend and more. While Cam is a little too perfect to be believable, Piper's distress as she alternately embraces Cam and then pushes him away is painfully realistic. This chiller for older teens offers an exceptional, albeit highly disturbing, narration by a survivor of abuse.Walter Hogan.