Stronger Than You Know
Stronger Than You Know
Select a format:
Publisher's Hardcover ©2014--
Paperback ©2015--
To purchase this item, you must first login or register for a new account.
Albert Whitman
Annotation: After fifteen years of horrific abuse and neglect by her mother and her mother's boyfriends, Joy struggles to understand and accept a normal life with relatives, at school, and with a boyfriend.
 
Reviews: 4
Catalog Number: #90929
Format: Publisher's Hardcover
Publisher: Albert Whitman
Copyright Date: 2014
Edition Date: 2014 Release Date: 09/01/14
Pages: 246 pages
ISBN: 0-8075-3155-3
ISBN 13: 978-0-8075-3155-6
Dewey: Fic
LCCN: 2014001262
Dimensions: 22 cm.
Language: English
Reviews:
ALA Booklist (Wed Oct 01 00:00:00 CDT 2014)

"I wish I could tell them about how much more my heart feels scarred. . . . My body is just a body, but the rest of it . . . that's where the damage is." In her latest novel, Perry explores the emotional and physical destruction of neglect and haunting abuse from the perspective of 15-year-old Joy. Experiencing intense anxieties on a second-to-second basis, she discovers that what she once considered a normal life with her mother is something that many don't survive. Perry's descriptions of Joy's intense turmoil are vivid: Joy's first day of school feels "like swimming through a crowded fish tank," she has a "need to disappear," and "the thought of speaking two sentences" makes it hard for her to breathe. Helped by evolving, positive relationships with friends, family members, and her boyfriend, as well as her enthusiasm for kung fu, Joy gradually gains the strength to begin to let go of her past, find comfort, and let joy spread into her world. A moving survival story.

Horn Book (Wed Apr 01 00:00:00 CDT 2015)

After unimaginable lifelong abuse, fifteen-year-old Joy suffers debilitating panic attacks and fears even her couldn't-be-kinder uncle, whose family she's now living with. Friends and family slowly penetrate her shell, and Joy gradually finds new passions--and remembers old ones. Joy's harrowing journey unfolds through flashbacks of her past abuse, which are as painful and believable as the scenes of her emotional progress.

School Library Journal (Mon Sep 01 00:00:00 CDT 2014)

Gr 9 Up-Joy is a 15-year-old who has been removed from her mother's care and placed in the home of her aunt and uncle after suffering years of abuse and neglect by her mother and her mother's "friends." The novel flashes back to Joy's terrible moments of imprisonment in her mother's trailer, but the story's strength lies in the protagonist's recovery process and how she learns to trust and become part of a family. The teen's phobias and difficulties are depicted with honesty and sympathy, and readers will struggle along with her as she begins to interact with her new family and her peers. While the subject matter is tough, this realistic title will draw teens in with its believable characters, including the well-written portrayal of the adult protagonists. A go-to work for fans of realistic fiction about teens who have survived severe abuse: physical, sexual, and emotional. Sarah Wilsman, Kent Free Library, Kent, OH

Reviewing Agencies: - Find Other Reviewed Titles
ALA Booklist (Wed Oct 01 00:00:00 CDT 2014)
Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books
Horn Book (Wed Apr 01 00:00:00 CDT 2015)
School Library Journal (Mon Sep 01 00:00:00 CDT 2014)
Reading Level: 7.0
Interest Level: 7-12
Reading Counts!: reading level:4.1 / points:15.0 / quiz:Q63951
Lexile: HL530L
Guided Reading Level: Z+

After police intervention, fifteen-year-old Joy has finally escaped the trailer where she once lived with her mother and survived years of confinement and abuse. Now living with her aunt, uncle, and cousins in a comfortable house, she's sure shell never belong. Wracked by panic attacks, afraid to talk to anyone at her new school, Joys got a whole list of reasons why shes crazy. With immense courage, Joy finds friends and grows closer to her new family. But just when hope is taking hold, she learns she must testify in her mothers trial. Can she face her old life without losing her way in the new one? Will she ever truly belong in a world that seems too normal to be real?


*Prices subject to change without notice and listed in US dollars.
Perma-Bound bindings are unconditionally guaranteed (excludes textbook rebinding).
Paperbacks are not guaranteed.
Please Note: All Digital Material Sales Final.