Central Kansas Library System

"Jaquira Díaz writes an unflinching account of growing up as a queer biracial girl searching for home as her family splits apart and her mother struggles with mental illness and addiction. From her own struggles with depression and drug abuse to her experiences of violence to Puerto Rico's history of colonialism, every page vibrates with music and lyricism"--

"For Sera Wheeler, the Olympics is the reason for everything. It's why she trains thirty hours a week, starves herself to under 100 pounds, and pops Advil like Tic Tacs. For her mother, Charlene, hungry for glory she never had, it's why she rises before dawn to drive Sera to practice in a different state, and why the family scrimps, saves, and fractures. They're why when Sera's best friends reports the gymnastics doctor to the authority who selects...

Elles sont nombreuses ces mères sans scrupules et sans coeur, ces mères abusives : De l'ambiguë Agrippine, mère haineuse de Néron à Ma Barker, qui dans les années 20, mit sur pied un gang avec ses fils; de la flamboyante Aliénor d'Aquitaine qui dressa Richard Coeur de Lion et ses frères contre leur père Henri II d'Angleterre, à la médiocre Athanaïse Claudel qui condamna sa fille Camille, artiste trop libre à son goût, à une atroce...

They called her Rabbit. Patricia Williams (aka Ms. Pat) was born and raised in Atlanta at the height of the crack epidemic. One of five children, Pat watched as her mother struggled to get by on charity, cons, and petty crimes. At age seven, Pat was taught to roll drunks for money. At twelve, she was targeted for sex by a man eight years her senior. By thirteen, she was pregnant. By fifteen, Pat was a mother of two. Alone at sixteen, Pat was determined...

Anchored to both the author's more than 20 years of experience in Clinical Psychology and her own experience being raised by a severely OCD mother, this story of family and relationships blends the genres of memoir and self-help while retaining the classic and best elements of storytelling, the protagonist, the antagonist, plot, emotion, and journey. It is a story about the ways a mother's mental illness reverberates through a family, told from a...

Painful experiences from childhood often shape the way we grow and develop as adults. Many children are not provided with the necessary tools and outlets for dealing with negative circumstances at home, which causes unhealthy coping methods to form and wounds from these past traumas to stay unhealed. While growing up with a mother who was emotionally and physically abusive, Shirley Williams did everything in her power to remain open to her world of...

In this follow-up to his first relationship guide, SMART Love, Vincent Fudge II takes a personal approach to offering advice for men about divorce. In STUPID Divorce, the narrator explores the reasons for his divorce, laying bare his emotions while providing a helpful and insightful approach to separation. Fudge's narrative suggests that divorce is STUPID-selfish, time-consuming, unnerving, painful, inconsiderate, and debt inducing. He confronts his...

Sherrie Davis knows what it is to live in pain and fear. For her heartache and fear was a part of her young life. Born to a mother who sold and used drugs and a father who was a career criminal, Sherrie's life was marred by a series of unknowns and the harsh reality of life in the inner city. By the time she was a teenager, she found herself living on the streets, but even that wasn't the most difficult chapter of her troubled life. Soon, she...

In the tradition of Rich Cohen's Sweet and Low and Sean Wilsey's Oh the Glory of it All, a memoir of a city, an industry, and a dynasty in decline, and the story of a young artist's struggle to find her way out of the ruins. Frances Stroh's earliest memories are ones of great privilege: shopping trips to London and New York, lunches served by black-tied waiters at the Regency Hotel, and a house filled with precious antiques, which she was forbidden...

From the #1 Amazon bestselling author of The Collective a Soulful Mind, comes a striking novella that delves into the complexities and reality of familial trauma and abuse. The girl with golden hair and emerald eyes never loses hope that she'll one day run through the meadow of sunflowers she dreams about. The readers will fall in love with and be inspired by the strength and resilience of the kindhearted Nadine. Once again, Helen has captivated...