AboutMadeline Expertise I can answer questions regarding "tween", teen, and young adult literature and make recommendations about books you may like based on genres and authors you've read and liked in the past. I'm most familiar with fantasy (and science fiction, to a certain extent), but I've read plenty of other genres as well, and I will make an effort to find the answer to your question even if I don't know it off the top of my head. However, I do not answer homework questions (so please don't bother asking them), and I'm not very good at finding obscure books---the best I can suggest is a Google search! Thanks!
Experience I am an avid reader, and I am trusted by all my friends for my taste in books. I have read books in all of the following genres (though I do not claim to be an expert in all of them): fantasy (I term any book with a fantastical element to it to be "fantasy"), sci-fi, historical fiction, classics, realistic fiction, mysteries, and whodunits.
Question hi i absolutely love depressing books i read like a child called it, crank, burned, impulse, go ask alice, and the blue is for nightmares series do you kno of any really depressing books that have to do with teens, drugs, alchohl, pregnancy stuff like that of abuse too. if you could please help me find another depressing book to read i would very much apreciate it thank you soo much p.s its not that i dont like happy books its that i dont like happy endings lol thank you soo much
Answer I'll freely admit I haven't read a lot of books of this type, but when I read your message one instantly came to mind. It's called "Ghost Girl", by Torey Hayden, and it's about a girl whose behavior makes her teacher believe that perhaps she is being sexually abused and/or exposed to satanic rituals. And, like "A Child Called It", it's a true story. It's a fascinating book, even for someone like me who would be quite content to never know about things like ritualistic sexual abuse...
"They Cage the Animals at Night", by Jennings Michael Burch, is another book that reminds me vaguely of "A Child Called It". The protagonist was abandoned by his mother at a young age in a horrible orphanage, and has to learn to survive in the numerous institutions he is consequently placed in.
You might also try "The Kiss", by Kathryn Harrison, about a college student who ends up having an affair with her own father.
Even if you've seen the movie "Girl, Interrupted", you should definitely still read the book (by Susanna Kaysen). It's a story about girls in a psychiatric ward (think "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest").
Finally, you may also wish to read "Smack", by Melvin Burgess, about two young teens who run away from unhappy family lives and run straight into the problems of heroin addiction while living on the streets.
Feel free to write back and let me know if you need more recommendations, or if I'm off-track with what I've given you so far. I hope you find something you like, and good luck!
