Pretty Girl Thirteen by Liz Coley

When Angie returns home from a school camping trip, she can’t understand why her parents are acting so strangely. She’s only been gone a few days – what’s their problem? For her parents, though, the wait has been agony.

In reality, Angie has been missing, presumed dead, for three years after she disappeared in the night from her tent. Angie thinks they’ve gone crazy, or are trying to freak her out, even though she can’t understand why.

Angie has no memory of the last three years at all. It’s true that her body has changed and no longer feels like her’s, and her friends have all grown up. She has become the centre of attention at school and in her neighbourhood as people around her realise she’s the girl from the news.

Her parents are concerned about her health, so she is taken to hospital for an examination. She’s referred to a psychologist who works with Angie to reclaim those lost years, and finds that she developed a complex coping mechanism to deal with the horrors she’s faced throughout her life – both during her disappearance and before.

Pretty Girl Thirteen is a fascinating exploration of dissociative identity disorder. At times harrowing, at others heart-breakingly sad, Pretty Girl Thirteen is disturbing but touching journey into the mind of someone desperately trying to deal with a lifetime of sickening experiences. It’s very good young adult fiction which will broaden the mind of the teenage reader.

Posted by RJB

Catalogue link: Pretty Girl Thirteen