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

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.

"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.