My young adult fiction book, “Paper Girl,” is available for sale on Amazon. Nikki, the protagonist, faces many painful events that are, for the most part, invisible to the rest of the world. Shocking twists and turns in the story will keep you cheering for Nikki on every page. I hope you will purchase it today for yourself or for a young person you know who enjoys reading stories such as, “The Fault in Our Stars,” “Looking for Alaska,” and “The Beginning of Everything.”

Much of what Nikki faces is similar to what some people face growing up in homes where the parents are absent. It could be they are absent because of drugs or alcohol, mental illness, or because they are simply emotionally unavailable. Here’s an excerpt from the Big Red Book that states this so well.

“We know of a woman who seemed to love canned potatoes. She felt ‘comfort’ just knowing there was a single can of potatoes in her cupboard….As she began addressing her abandonment issues as an adult, she realized that the canned potatoes meant something more than a fondness for a peeled vegetable in a can. She realized, or her body remembered, that canned potatoes were the difference between going hungry or having something to eat when her alcoholic mother went out for days without coming home….As a child, while feeling fearful and hungry when her mother was gone, she found a can of potatoes. She ate the potatoes and felt full. Her hunger left, and she could sleep. At a young age, she felt comforted by the potatoes for two reasons: She solved her immediate problem of hunger, and she knew she did not need her mother to take care of her. She could now take care of herself. She would take care of her sister, too. She learned to drag a chair to the edge of the stove to warm up soup and drag the same chair to the sink to wash dishes. She no longer had to feel hurt or abandoned by a mother she loved and adored….The canned potatoes represented her introduction to adulthood before she attended her first day of school as a first grader. As an adult, through much work, she realized she had a hunger for her mother’s love; a hunger she could never completely quench….When she finally walked away from the abandoning and loveless relationship with her mother, she felt like her world had ended. She felt guilty and wrong, but eventually found peace and inner strength from the work she did in her recovery program. Through much work she now reaches into her cupboard for a variety of food to nourish her body and soul.”