Dear Elizabeth,It's early morning and I'm sitting here wondering where you are, hoping you're all right. A fight, ended by a slap, sends Elizabeth out the door of her Baton Rouge home on the eve of her fifteenth birthday. Her mother, Laura, is left to fret and worry-and remember. Wracked with guilt as she awaits Liz's return, Laura begins a letter to her daughter, hoping to convey "everything I've always meant to tell you but never have."In her painfully...

"'Speak up for yourself--we want to know what you have to say.' From the first moment of her freshman year at Merryweather High, Melinda knows this is a big fat lie, part of the nonsense of high school. She is friendless, outcast, because she busted an end-of-summer party by calling the cops, so now nobody will talk to her, let alone listen to her. As time passes, she becomes increasingly isolated and practically stops talking altogether. Only her...