It's likely I never would have heard of, much less read this book if I hadn't gone to high school with one of its authors. We went to the same high school, but lived in different universes. However, it seems that even Liz Welch's closest friends didn't have much more of an idea of what was going on in her life than I did.
Liz (second of four children) and youngest sister Diana, along with their other siblings Amanda and Dan share with the reader--and for the first time with one another--their experiences after first the death of their father in a car accident and then of their mother to cancer three years later. At the time they became orphans, they ranged in age from I think eight to nineteen. They were split up into different homes and all had a pretty trying time of it, especially Diana who was bewildered and felt abandoned.
It was weird for me at first reading this parallel universe kind of story, where I knew the locations and many of the people mentioned (or their older siblings, as Liz was a year behind me in school). I am curious, though, as to the identity of the girl in this anecdote: "and [the Chilean exchange student] Andres asleep in Mom's room with a girl from the drama club." My money is on Jen D., but I thought the exchange students were from Argentina.
But even if you didn't live in the same school district as the Welches, their story is compelling and sad. It serves as an important reminder that there's a lot more going on beneath the surface of a person than you know. I didn't know Liz in high school, but if I thought about her at all, I probably dismissed her as a little miss perfect preppy white bread never had a problem in her life kind of person, which as it turns out is just what she wanted everyone to think, but it was far from true.