An award-winning journalist, in this necessary story of family struggle, female survival and the passionate drive to bear witness, relates her personal journey from teenage runaway to reporter on the global epidemic of violence against women.

Joyce Carol Oates shares her struggle to comprehend a life absent of the partnership that had sustained and defined her for nearly half a century.

Pup Flanagan routinely settles for less and since his brother, the only one who made him think he could be more, dies, he basically sleepwalks through life, until a photography assignment changes his view of things.

"After something bad happens, a child has trouble connecting with those around him. His loved ones try to reach out and talk to him, but he only feels like running away. So, from his room, he picks up a shovel and digs a tunnel deep down and out into the backyard. Outside in the dark, nobody knows where he is. He could just disappear. But, seeing his mom in the window, his newfound distance offers him enough space to see the connection he needs. Something...

After her beloved pet dog dies, a young girl finds it very difficult to overcome her feelings of sadness.

In 1987, after losing her father to AIDS, Iris navigates her rage and grief, resolving to speak out against the rampant fear, misinformation and prejudice surrounding the disease, which leads to new friendships and surprising discoveries.

When Emma develops vitiligo, a skin condition, shortly after her grandmother's death, it changes her life completely, but when she tries to write in the journal which she and her grandmother shared to write fairy tales, comments like those her grandmother used to write start to appear.

"Twelve-year-old Willa, grieving the loss of her mother, a renowned marine biologist, discovers she can talk to whales"-- Provided by publisher.

Told in alternating timelines and points of view, three boys prepare and execute a bold plan that results in a deadly plane crash, and in the the aftermath, three girls--a twin sister, a best friend, and an ex-girlfriend--try to piece together the truth about the boys they loved and thought they knew.

Escaping the City and those who want them dead, Ellie and Seth arrive on a tropical island after months spent on a homemade raft, where they are faced with impossible choices, dangerous secrets, and no one left to trust.