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irishtraveller 's review for:
It's been a while since I read such an utterly inspiring and heartbreaking book. And at the same time, I don't think the author's intent is to portray herself as a victim but rather as a person who chose to make a change to an already tragic life. I saw the Lifetime movie when it was released in 2003. I was still in college and utterly full of myself as most kids are. But Liz's story brought the problems outside of my own world into reality, and I realized there are others living in far worse circumstances.
Liz's parents were cocaine-addicted, HIV-positive hippies living in the Bronx off of welfare checks. By all accounts, Liz and her sister Lisa really didn't stand a chance. Liz fell into the trap of believing herself a victim until an epiphany of a sort helped her understand otherwise. After living on the streets as a homeless teenager, she pulled herself up by her bootstraps and put herself in high school, already far behind where she needed to be.
This story is really about finding hope and setting goals even in impossible circumstances. Against all odds, Liz ended up at Harvard with the support of the people she surrounded herself with. She learned to make no excuses, took charge of her life, and went for her dreams. The book is profoundly heartbreaking, with Liz describing the blood spatters on the walls of their grungy apartment after her parents shot up their drugs, the way she was made fun of at school because she didn't understand personal hygiene, and her mother's desire to quit drugs but was too addicted to stop.
Liz's parents were cocaine-addicted, HIV-positive hippies living in the Bronx off of welfare checks. By all accounts, Liz and her sister Lisa really didn't stand a chance. Liz fell into the trap of believing herself a victim until an epiphany of a sort helped her understand otherwise. After living on the streets as a homeless teenager, she pulled herself up by her bootstraps and put herself in high school, already far behind where she needed to be.
This story is really about finding hope and setting goals even in impossible circumstances. Against all odds, Liz ended up at Harvard with the support of the people she surrounded herself with. She learned to make no excuses, took charge of her life, and went for her dreams. The book is profoundly heartbreaking, with Liz describing the blood spatters on the walls of their grungy apartment after her parents shot up their drugs, the way she was made fun of at school because she didn't understand personal hygiene, and her mother's desire to quit drugs but was too addicted to stop.