by Rufi Thorpe
First published 2014
Mia has always been the troubled one. She deals with her alcoholic mother, gets pregnant at fifteen, and struggles to care for her younger brothers. Her best friend Lorrie Ann seems untouchable by comparison. Beautiful and kind, Lorrie Ann glows within her loving family while Mia stumbles through one crisis after another. Then sudden tragedy strikes Lorrie Ann's world. Everything that made her luminous begins to crumble. Mia watches helplessly as her good, brave friend transforms into someone she no longer recognizes. The woman who once seemed immune to life's disasters now makes choices that shock everyone around her. As Lorrie Ann's behavior grows more destructive, Mia must confront an unsettling question: who is this person she thought she knew so well? The answer forces both women to examine what friendship really means and what they owe to the people they love most.
Genres: fiction, literary-fiction, contemporary, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Corona Del Mar
Kindle Edition · Cornerstone Digital
Content warnings: addiction, alcohol-abuse, child-abuse, mental-illness