ALA Booklist (Fri Mar 01 00:00:00 CST 2013)

Thirteen: the age Angie is when she is kidnapped on a Girl Scout camping trip. Sixteen: the age she is when she returns home, remembering nothing about the events of the past three years. This novel opens with a chilling account of her capture, and then moves forward to the present day, as Angie attempts to puzzle out what happened. But in order to protect herself from the trauma, Angie developed multiple personalities, each of whom served a specific role during her time in captivity d they seem to be sticking around. There's Girl Scout, the seemingly dominant personality, in charge of cooking and tending house at the cabin; Little Wife, the one who took over in the bedroom; Angel, always ready to physically defend Angie; and others. While Coley's debut has its flaws me of the plot surprises aren't all that surprising and several threads feel superfluous e psychology of dissociative identity disorder is fascinating, and teens will want to see if Angie can break down the self-contained compartments in her brain and incorporate all of her selves into a complete whole.

Horn Book (Thu Aug 01 00:00:00 CDT 2013)

Angie returns after being abducted from her Girl Scout camping trip with no memory of the last three years. Diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder, Angie's multiple personas--"Girl Scout," "Little Wife," etc., who all call Angie "Pretty Girl-Thirteen"--reveal her ordeal. A tight plot, empathetic protagonist, and a sensitive treatment of mental illness and trauma yield a compelling first novel.

Kirkus Reviews

The opening chapters of Coley's debut for teens will chill readers to the bone--unfortunately, the rest of the novel fails to deliver. The haunting description of 13-year-old Angela Chapman's abduction from a Girl Scout camping trip and her mysterious return three years later has all the makings of a deeply disturbing but satisfying psychological thriller. With a combination of third-person narration and first-hand accounts by the multiple personalities Angie's created to protect herself from the trauma of her abduction and sexual exploitation, the structure of the novel is innovative and rich with potential. Rather than reveling in the complexities of Angie's broken psyche, however, the story spoon-feeds readers critical pieces far too quickly. For example, the day after her miraculous return, Angie has her first therapy session, at which she falls immediately under hypnosis and leaves with a diagnosis. Readers are cheated out of the pleasure of suspense. For a novel about a young girl's miraculous return to her family and community, there is also a surprising and disappointing lack of emotion. Even though her friends thought she must have been dead, Angie's return to La Cañada High School feels more like the popular girl coming home after a stint in rehab than the return of someone who has survived the truly unimaginable. It simply doesn't ring true. (Psychological thriller. 14 & up)

Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

In Britz-Cunningham-s entertaining debut, the media spotlight is on Chicago-s Fletcher Memorial Medical Center, as a team of neurosurgeons seeks a major breakthrough. A seven-year-old boy, Jamie Winslow, lost his sight at age three as the result of an arteriovenous malformation in his brain. Dr. Richard Helvelius and Dr. Ali O-Day plan to rectify the problem by removing the growth and substituting a specialized computer that will restore Jamie-s vision. But in the middle of the delicate procedure, a Code White indicates that there-s a bomb in the hospital. The author, a staff radiologist at Boston-s Brigham and Women-s Hospital, nicely combines the effort to insure the operation-s success and the patient-s recovery with the race to find and defuse the bomb and identify those responsible for the threat. The few elements of soap opera won-t stop readers from frantically turning the pages to see what happens next. Agent: Al Zuckerman, Writers House. (Apr.)

School Library Journal (Mon Apr 01 00:00:00 CDT 2013)

Gr 9 Up-Angie Chapman's return three years after she disappeared on a camping trip stuns her parents and the detective who assumed she had been kidnapped and killed. Angie remembers nothing. In fact, she thinks she is still 13, not 16. She can't explain the scars around her wrists and ankles or where she has been. After she is diagnosed with dissociative personality disorder (DID), a psychologist helps her draw out her different personalities, aka "alters," and how they helped her cope with her kidnapper. Girl Scout took care of household chores while Little Wife dealt with his sexual demands. The alters influence Angie's behavior at home and school, where she has difficulty finding a place. Her struggles to remember and fit back in intensify when she hears the story of "Tattletale," an alter, and realizes that her DID began when she was repeatedly abused by her uncle. Despite the difficulties, Angie ultimately emerges as a strong young woman with new friends and an improved relationship with her family. Some explanations of her treatments, especially experimental procedures to eliminate alters, have a textbook quality. A final revelation wraps up the plot a bit too neatly. However, for the most part Coley presents the impact of DID without sensationalizing the situation. Readers interested in psychological explorations will appreciate and admire Angie's struggles and journey. Kathy Piehl, Minnesota State University, Mankato