Through intense, diarylike chapters chronicling Charlie's journey, the author captures the brutal and heartbreaking way 'girls who write their pain on their bodies' scar and mar themselves, either succumbing or surviving.

Feeling rejected, Charlie, an artist, is drawn into a destructive new relationship with her sexy older co-worker, a 'semifamous' local musician who's obviously a junkie alcoholic. But things don't go as planned in the Arizona desert, because sweet Mikey just wants to be friends. After spending time in treatment with other young women like her-who cut, burn, poke, and otherwise hurt themselves-Charlie is released and takes a bus from the Twin Cities to Tucson to be closer to Mikey, a boy she 'like-likes' but who had pined for Ellis instead. Seventeen-year-old Charlie Davis, a white girl living on the margins, thinks she has little reason to live: her father drowned himself her bereft and abusive mother kicked her out her best friend, Ellis, is nearly brain dead after cutting too deeply and she's gone through unspeakable experiences living on the street. YA)Īfter surviving a suicide attempt, a fragile teen isn't sure she can endure without cutting herself. Although the plot lacks momentum and the romance between Katrina and Malcolm is over almost before it’s begun, there’s sufficient charm to get readers-steaming mug of coffee in hand-through a chilly afternoon. After a series of false starts-he’s busy with a challenging delivery, she’s seething with jealousy when Vincent begins dating her nemesis, the daughter of a loathsome rival coffeehouse owner-girl and angel work together to save Anna’s coffeehouse and get Malcolm out of trouble with The Boss.

Malcolm is actually a low-level angel toiling as a messenger for Heaven, whose tendency to grow overly involved with the humans he meets lands him in hot water. Katrina’s focus on others lets her neglect her own entrepreneurial ambitions, so the task of nudging Katrina toward fulfilling her dreams and desires falls to Malcolm, the unnervingly cute and apparently homeless guy Katrina finds sleeping behind the coffeehouse.

Self-deprecating to a fault, Katrina is also fiercely loyal-to her quaint Pacific Northwest town, to her Grandma Anna’s sadly outdated coffeehouse and to her high-achieving friends Vincent and Elizabeth.

Coffeehouse angel by suzanne selfors