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Paper Butterflies

Lisa Heathfield · back to the book

What’s in it

Tap a tag: ❤ = this matters to me · tap again ✕ = don’t care · again to reset. The list below updates each time.

24 books with the same feel

Include books by the same author
❤️

Tricks

Ellen Hopkins · 627 pages

Five teenagers find themselves stuck in a horrifying wold of sexual slavery

Childhood TraumaChild AbuseEmotional AbuseEmotional
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Hopeless

Colleen Hoover · 416 pages

Sky, a senior in high school, meets Dean Holder, a guy with a promiscuous reputation that rivals her own. From their very first encounter, he terrifies and captivates her. Something about him sparks memories of her deeply troubled past, a time she's tried so hard to bury. Though Sky is determined to stay far away from him, his unwavering pursuit and enigmatic smile break down her defences and the

Emotional AbuseChildhood TraumaChild AbuseEmotional
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White Oleander

Janet Fitch · 390 pages

Everywhere hailed as a novel of rare beauty and power, White Oleander tells the unforgettable story of Ingrid, a brilliant poet imprisoned for murder, and her daughter, Astrid, whose odyssey through a series of Los Angeles foster homes-each its own universe, with its own laws, its own dangers, its own hard lessons to be learned-becomes a redeeming and surprising journey of self-discovery.

Emotional AbuseChildhood TraumaChild AbuseEmotional
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Reason to Breathe

Rebecca Donovan

Emotional AbuseChild AbuseEmotionalYoung Adult
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Touching Snow

M. Sindy Felin · 237 pages

After her stepfather is arrested for child abuse, thirteen-year-old Karina's home life improves but while the severity of her older sister's injuries and the urging of her younger sister, their uncle, and a friend tempt her to testify against him, her mother and other well-meaning adults pursuade her to claim responsibility.

Child AbuseChildhood TraumaEmotionalTeen Protagonist
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Live Through This

Mindi Scott · 304 pages

From the outside, fifteen-year-old Coley Sterling's life seems imperfect but normal, but for years she has buried her shame and guilt over a relationship that crossed the line and now that she has a chance at having a real boyfriend, Reece, the lies begin to unravel.

Childhood TraumaChild AbuseTeen ProtagonistEmotional
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Bastard Out of Carolina

Dorothy Allison · 309 pages

Bone, an illegitimate child in a family of social outcasts, sees her mother's happiness with her new husband and will not tell when the stepfather begins abusing her in the 1950s.

Childhood TraumaChild AbuseEmotional AbuseEmotional
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What My Bones Know

Stephanie Foo · 352 pages

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A searing memoir of reckoning and healing by acclaimed journalist Stephanie Foo, investigating the little-understood science behind complex PTSD and how it has shaped her life“Achingly exquisite . . . providing real hope for those who long to heal.”—Lori Gottlieb, New York Times bestselling author of Maybe You Should Talk to SomeoneONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The

Emotional AbuseChildhood TraumaChild AbuseEmotional
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I'm Glad My Mom Died

Jennette McCurdy · 320 pages

A heartbreaking and hilarious memoir by iCarly and Sam & Cat star Jennette McCurdy about her struggles as a former child actor—including eating disorders, addiction, and a complicated relationship with her overbearing mother—and how she retook control of her life. Jennette McCurdy was six years old when she had her first acting audition. Her mother’s dream was for her only daughter to become a

Emotional AbuseChildhood TraumaChild AbuseEmotional
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Ugly

Constance Briscoe · 320 pages

Constance's mother systematically abused her daughter, both physically and emotionally, throughout her childhood. Regularly beaten and starved, the girl was so desperate she took herself off to Social Services and tried to get taken into care. When that failed, she swallowed bleach 'because it kills all known germs and my mother always told me I was a germ'. When Constance was thirteen, her mother

Emotional AbuseChildhood TraumaChild AbuseEmotional
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Heart on a Chain

Cindy C. Bennett · 311 pages

Emotional AbuseChildhood TraumaEmotionalTeen Protagonist
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Living Dead Girl

Elizabeth Scott · 184 pages

Emotional AbuseChild AbuseEmotionalTeen Protagonist
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If You Find Me

Emily Murdoch · 290 pages

"She leaves us sittin' there, with the late-afternoon sun dapplin' the forest floor as if it's any other day. I watch her reach into the bin by the foldin' table, then walk back over. She hands me two of the shiny black garbage bags folded up like Mama's letter. I slip out from under Jenessa, balance her on the tree, and proceed to shake each bag into its full size. We all stop and watch the birds

Child AbuseChildhood TraumaEmotionalTeen Protagonist
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Ordinary Beauty

Laura Wiess · 290 pages

After suffering years of neglect, Sayre Bellavia wonders if her addict mother, who is now lying near death in a hospital, ever loved her.

Childhood TraumaChild AbuseEmotionalTeen Protagonist
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Ellen Foster

Kaye Gibbons · 126 pages

Having suffered abuse and misfortune for much of her life, a young child searches for a better life and finally gets a break in the home of a loving woman with several foster children.

Emotional AbuseChildhood TraumaChild AbuseEmotional
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A Stolen Life

Jaycee Dugard · 273 pages

In the summer of 1991 I was a normal kid. I did normal things. I had friends and a mother who loved me. I was just like you. Until the day my life was stolen. For eighteen years I was a prisoner. I was an object for someone to use and abuse. For eighteen years I was not allowed to speak my own name. I became a mother and was forced to be a sister. For eighteen years I survived an impossible

Child AbuseChildhood TraumaEmotional AbuseEmotional
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A Child Called "It"

Dave Pelzer · 184 pages

This book chronicles the unforgettable account of one of the most severe child abuse cases in California history. It is the story of Dave Pelzer, who was brutally beaten and starved by his emotionally unstable, alcoholic mother: a mother who played tortuous, unpredictable games--games that left him nearly dead. He had to learn how to play his mother's games in order to survive because she no longe

Emotional AbuseChildhood TraumaChild AbuseEmotional
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Good Morning, Monster

Catherine Gildiner · 368 pages

As seen on Good Morning America's SEPTEMBER 2020 READING LIST and FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2020!"We need to read stories about folks who have been through hell and kept going... Fascinating." —Glennon Doyle, A Favorite Book of 2020 on Good Morning America"Gildiner is nothing short of masterful—as both a therapist and writer. In these pages, she has gorgeously captured both the privilege of being given ac

Emotional AbuseChildhood TraumaChild AbuseEmotional
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Push

Sapphire · 176 pages

Precious Jones, an illiterate sixteen-year-old, has up until now been invisible: invisible to the father who rapes her and the mother who batters her and to the authorities who dismiss her as just one more of Harlem's casualties. But when Precious, pregnant with a second child by her father, meets a determined and highly radical teacher, we follow her on a journey of education and enlightenment as

Childhood TraumaChild AbuseEmotionalTeen Protagonist
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Hurt

Tabitha Suzuma · 416 pages

Child AbuseChildhood TraumaEmotionalYoung Adult
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Grey

E.L. James · 600 pages

Christian Grey exercises control in all things; his world is neat, disciplined, and utterly empty ... until the day that Anastasia Steele falls into his office, in a tangle of shapely limbs and tumbling brown hair. He tries to forget her, but instead is swept up in a storm of emotion he cannot comprehend and cannot resist. Unlike any woman he has known before, shy, unworldly Ana seems to see right

Childhood TraumaEmotional AbuseChild AbuseEmotional
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Wishing for Someday Soon

Tiffany King · 282 pages

Child AbuseChildhood TraumaEmotionalTeen Protagonist
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Please Ignore Vera Dietz

A.S. King · 326 pages

When her best friend, whom she secretly loves, betrays her and then dies under mysterious circumstances, high school senior Vera Dietz struggles with secrets that could help clear his name.

Emotional AbuseChildhood TraumaChild AbuseEmotional
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Call Me Tuesday

Leigh Byrne · 328 pages

Emotional AbuseChildhood TraumaChild AbuseEmotional

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