My Book of Life by Angel by Martine Leavitt

Angel’s been running away from home ever since her mom died, but she usually only goes so far as the mall before she returns home or the police pick her up for shoplifting.  After Angel is seduced by an ambitious pimp who feeds her addictive drugs, Angel’s distraught father makes the grave mistake of telling Angel not to come home until she cleans up her act.  Call, a pimp remarkable for his intent to lead a grassroots effort to legalize prostitution, seizes the the opportunity to take over Angel’s life and move her into downtown Vancouver. Initially terrorized by Call, Angel eventually becomes preoccupied with protecting a younger girl from the life Call has given her and fighting the attendant drug addiction.  Told in haunting verse, the end of the book roots Leavitt’s fiction in the real-life disappearances of forty-nine women.  School librarians will want to know that the depiction of minors sexually abused by adults makes this book appropriate for more emotionally mature audiences.--Jessica Fenster-Sparber

Macmillian offers a discussion guide here.  Click here to read School Library Journal’s interview with author Martine Leavitt.

Leavitt, Martine.  My Book of Life by Angel.  New York:  Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2012.