Overview
Cheerleading, mean girls, shopping . . . and leprosy? High school is about to get complicated. For fans of Before I Fall and Exit, Pursued By a Bear. Cheerleading, mean girls, shopping . . . and leprosy? High school is about to get complicated. For fans of Before I Fall and Exit, Pursued By a Bear. Abby Furlowe has plans. Big plans. She's hot, she's popular, she's a cheerleader and she's going to break out of her small Texas town and make it big. Fame and fortune, adoration and accolades. It'll all be hers. But then she notices some spots on her skin. She writes them off as a rash, but things only get worse. She's tired all the time, her hands and feet are numb and her face starts to look like day-old pizza. By the time her seventeenth birthday rolls around, she's tried every cream and medication the doctors have thrown at her, but nothing works. When she falls doing a routine cheerleading stunt and slips into a coma, her mystery illness goes into overdrive and finally gets diagnosed- Hansen's Disease, aka leprosy. Abby is sent to a facility to recover and deal with this new reality. Her many misdiagnoses mean that some permanent damage has been done, and all of her plans suddenly come tumbling down. If she can't even wear high heels anymore, what is the point of living? Cheerleading is out the window, and she might not even make it to prom. PROM! But it's during this recovery that Abby has to learn to live with something even more difficult than Hansen's Disease. She's becoming aware of who she really was before and what her behavior was doing to others; now she's on the other side of the fence looking in, and she doesn't like what she sees. . . Darkly comic but ultimately touching, Confessions of a Teenage Leper is an ugly duckling tale with a surprising twist.
Full Product Details
Author: Ashley Little
Publisher: Penguin Books Canada Ltd
Imprint: Penguin Books Canada Ltd
Dimensions:
Width: 14.80cm
, Height: 2.70cm
, Length: 21.90cm
Weight: 0.408kg
ISBN: 9780735262614
ISBN 10: 0735262616
Pages: 304
Publication Date: 11 September 2018
Recommended Age: From 14 years
Audience:
Young adult
,
Teenage / Young adult
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: To order
Stock availability from the supplier is unknown. We will order it for you and ship this item to you once it is received by us.
Reviews
Ashley Little has combined an uncommon aspect of modern-day medicine with the common challenge for teens of realizing what is truly of value in life. -- Resource Links Magazine Little handles [Abby's journey] with a realistic candour and narrative ease, skilfully rendering Abby at every stage of her journey. -- Quill & Quire
Author Information
ASHLEY LITTLEreceived a BFA in Creative Writing and Film Studies from the University of Victoria and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia. Her bookThe New Normalwon the Sheila A. Egoff Children's Literature Prize, andAnatomy of a Girl Gangwon the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize, was a finalist for the City of Vancouver Book Award, longlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and has been optioned for television. Confessions of a Teenage Leper is Ashley's fifth novel. Ashley lives in British Columbia with her partner, their daughter, and her toy poodle, Huxley.
