A teenage girl navigates trauma and revenge on a journey to the circus in this “marvelous modern-girl odyssey, dark and comic and poignant and smart” (Susan Orlean, author of The Orchid Thief).
At fifteen, Faith Duckle was lured under the bleachers by a bunch of boys and brutally attacked. Now, almost a year later, a newly thin Faith is haunted by her past and by the flippant, cruel ghost of her formerly fat self who is bent on revenge.
Faith eventually turns to violence for retribution, forcing her to flee home in search of the only friend she has—a troubled but caring busboy who is the lover of a sideshow performer—and to tumble into the colorful, transient world of the circus. But as she dives headfirst into a world of adult passions and dreams, mercurial allegiances, and exhilarating self-discovery, Faith must also face some disturbing truths about herself and the world around her.
“[A] literary act that disobeys the rules of gravity and leaves us, heart in throat, wishing it would never end.” —January Magazine
