I awoke to the smell of her cheap perfume filling the air. “Mom?” I asked confused. “Get up,” she growled, scratching the skin of her neck. “Get dressed. I’m taking you somewhere.” She never stayed long unless she needed something, and the previous night she had been in a fight with my stepdad, because […]
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We’ve seen it before time and time again. The doomed love stories. I suppose there is a strange pull toward the idea of sitting in a big group with tears streaming down your face and leaving feeling as if your insides have been scooped out and dumped in an unknown location. I am no exception. […]
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The Dead Inside by Cyndy Etler details the true story of a girl who’s striving to escape the confines of her abusive home and Straight, Inc., a company that secretly manipulates children and teens into submission. In this heartbreaking and raw story about the dismal aspects of adolescence and the difficulty of surpassing the past, Etler […]
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Each morning I hid the girl I saw in the mirror — the girl that no one else saw but me. She was me in the natural state, with ratted hair, smelling breath, and a bare face. I covered her up with makeup to make her beautiful. I layered on a facial primer, foundation, and […]
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Stephanie Elliot is the author of the new YA novel Sad Perfect, which centers around a little-known eating disorder called ARFID (Avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder). Pea is the 16-year-old protagonist who struggles with ARFID and undergoes a beautifully told and achingly felt struggle toward recovery. Grab your copy today and follow along with Pea as she falls in […]
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You know that way that Facebook uses some complex algorithm to determine what news appears in your feed? Recently, it just so happened to be the death of an old friend. Wow, all those RIPs flooding my timeline and suddenly I realised something real had happened. This girl, barely a couple years older than myself, […]
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Warning: graphic content. This is a true story about the most traumatic thing that has happened in my life. Even though I have suffered the after effects for years, I believe going through this has completely shaped me as a person, and I do not regret anything. All names have been changed other than my […]
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You might be able to guess from my glasses and general bookishness that I would be bad at socializing. You’d be right. Sometimes these first judgments people make are welcome, though. I don’t have to talk to many people I don’t want to. I can excuse myself for a homework assignment. The book I always […]
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