Day 164: Breaking Night

Breaking Night by Liz Murray. ISBN: 9780786868919 (ARC - publishes Sept 7, 2010).

I don't have a whole lot in common with Murray.  I certainly didn't have parents who did coke (to my knowledge, anyway) and I don't recall ever going hungry even if I didn't get everything I ever wanted.  I did skip school.  It wasn't so much that I wasn't motivated to go, or that I spent the day hanging out with my friends.  Usually I took the day off because I didn't have any friends, and was often actively antagonized by my classmates.

With so little to look forward to in my day, and what seemed like mostly pointless classes, I just stayed home.  I think my mother knew that most of the time I was faking illness, and then there were the times were she left for work before I was even awake and told her I didn't go because "I wasn't feeling well."  It was true, for three out of four years the idea of going to school filled me with a dread that curled up in my stomach and stayed there all day. 

I didn't do much with my days.  I actually usually just did homework or read ahead in my textbooks.  I watched Ricki Lake and The Price is Right.  I napped a lot.  I just enjoyed the lack of pressure of staying home.  I didn't have to work hard to be invisible or quiet, to try and go unnoticed.  A good day at school was one where no one talked to me or about me or pointed at me and laughed.  A good day off from school was one where I was able to do whatever I wanted, no one missed me, and I could breathe.  If I had been able to go to high school where I could just focus on my classes and be left alone, I would have been fine.  Instead I took the maximum number of health days from class I could without failing or getting my mother in trouble.

In contrast I hardly ever missed a class at Antioch.

My review can be found over at Goodreads.com.