This nov­el begins with some usu­al teenage chat­ter but quick­ly focus­es on Alexan­dra whose moth­er has died unex­pect­ed­ly of a brain hem­or­rhage and is left not only moth­er­less but with a father who has many issues of his own and seems to take out his frus­tra­tions on Alex. Although she has two broth­ers, she is the one who is tar­get­ed and is con­stant­ly told she is an under­achiev­er. No mat­ter what she does, there is no way to please her father. Feel­ing reject­ed and lone­ly, Alex is delight­ed when Paula, one of her teach­ers, reach­es out to her. Paula finds out about Alex’s parental loss and pro­ceeds to befriend her. How­ev­er, as the rela­tion­ship con­tin­ues, Paula sub­jects Alex to both phys­i­cal and emo­tion­al abuse. Paula shares inap­pro­pri­ate per­son­al infor­ma­tion, slaps and spanks her, den­i­grates and embar­rass­es her in front of her peers, and even attempts to change her com­mit­ment from Judaism to Paula’s new­ly acquired born-again Chris­t­ian church. Since Alex’s own expe­ri­ence is lim­it­ed and because she is so emo­tion­al­ly needy, she is unable to eval­u­ate what is hap­pen­ing.
The one bright light in Alex’s year is her sum­mer away at camp. It is here she can con­tin­ue her life nor­mal­ly. How Alex is able to resolve her unhealthy attach­ment to Paula and how her coun­selor, Eri­ca, is able to guide her through this trou­bling expe­ri­ence is the heart of the sto­ry.
In an after­word, the read­er is giv­en an expla­na­tion of how this kind of abuse keeps a child “… bond­ed to the per­pe­tra­tor long after the rela­tion­ship ends.”

Rec­om­mend­ed for ages 16 and up and for parents.