The Night of the Gun
by David Carr | 
A Piece of Cake
by Cupcake Brown | 
Born with Teeth
by Kate Mulgrew | 
The Chronology of Water
by Lidia Yuknavitch | 
Borrowed Finery
by Paula Fox | 
Giving Up the Ghost
by Hilary Mantel | 
Townie
by Andre Dubus III | 
Lost In Place
by Mark Salzman | 
Permanent Midnight
by Jerry Stahl | 
Sky of Stone
by Homer Hickam | 
A Match to the Heart
by Gretel Ehrlich | 
Fat Girl
by Judith Moore | 
More, Now, Again
by Elizabeth Wurtzel | 
The Only Girl in the Car
by Kathy Dobie | 
Her Last Death
by Susanna Sonnenberg | 
When Breath Becomes Air
by Paul Kalanithi | 
Tuesdays with Morrie
by Mitch Albom | 
Educated
by Tara Westover | 
Half Broke Horses
by Jeannette Walls | 
The Story of My Life
by Helen Keller |
Domenica Ruta grew up in Danvers, Massachusetts, in a ramshackle, rundown, trash-filled house with her mother, a drug dealer and user who raised Domenica on a steady diet of Oxycontin. Growing up, Domenica knew she didn't fit in-she was far smarter and worse dressed than everyone else she knew, and she clearly had the most flamboyant mother of anyone in town-but she found solace in writing and reading. As she grew older, though, and as her mother's behavior grew increasingly outrageous and her home life increasingly untenable, Domenica fled Danvers only to become ensnared by the demons of addiction.