There are very few writers who can take a true, gritty story and render it in such a manner that it is digestible but not romanticized or greyed by the forced constraints of storytelling. Dickinson is one of the few authors I know who hits soft and still knocks the reader out. She does not overdo or under-represent. She portrays a sickeningly sad story with the refinement of an expert wordsmith. One girl's story is all our story, and Dickinson reminds us of that in this powerful novel.