Book Review: The Life I'm In / Sharon G. Flake

Char is one tough kid. Often in trouble - it doesn't take much for her to come out fighting. She bullies people often and has been kicked out of school repeatedly. She has lived with her sister JuJu since their parents died and they survive by throwing parties and charging people to come. But now JuJu has had enough of Char's bad behavior and is sending her, by bus, to her grandparent's house. Char wants nothing to do with that. She plans to survive on her own.

Char meets people on the bus and becomes friendly with April and April's baby. Who knows? Maybe they can live by working together. But things go awry when April takes off leaving the baby with Char. How can Char take care of herself, and a baby - alone, underage, in a strange place?  

Spoiler, this is a book about human trafficking - it is sad and hard to read. There are resources to learn more about human trafficking at the end of this book. This is an important topic to learn about. It is easy to think that this couldn't happen to us, to our friends, to anyone we know. But there are people who are trafficked everywhere. And sometimes them becomes us.

This is a book about trafficking, but also about healing. If you don't mind reading about hard things - try this book.