some intense and thought-provoking subtext. I can understand why some have found Story of a Girl's ending to feel less than adequately positive. However, it felt honest to me. Sometimes, it's as likely for someone to say: "I was wrong and I'm sorry" as it is for them to light themselves on fire. Sometimes shifts in perception, or forgiveness, are not accompanied by declarations or grand gestures. Often they come on gradually, unheralded. And sometimes, when one has forgiven themselves, the same acknowledgement from others is no longer all that necessary anyway. Redemption can be a self-fulfilling thing. To this end, I think Zarr's conclusion to this book struck the right chord, with small glimpses of hope and change, while remaining in keeping with the gentle character growth throughout. It would be dishonest of me to say that reading Story of A Girl didn't leave me feeling scraped and bruised and bring me precariously close to an ugly cry in public. For a short book it certainly hit a nerve -- it's not often that I read something that takes me from anger and indignation to intense sadness and beyond. But in the end I didn't feel like I'd lost anything for reading it. On the contrary, I felt like I'd been given something important and special. Certainly another viewpoint from which to consider things, but more than that, a sense that experiences like Deanna's have not gone unwitnessed. I wish you could hear Zarr narrate it as her voice