An excellent portrait of a redoubtable adolescent making herself up out of whole cloth. strengthened by adversity and blessed with enough intelligence to design a salvation for herself, Ellen Foster has found a new mother and settled into a permanent home, though she still carries the burden of her mother's death and her father's abuse. While she holds on firmly to the shreds of her childhood, she negotiates her way into a larger world, setting her sights high, on Harvard. An engaging novel filled with love, fear, grief, tears & laughter, hope, wit and ingenuity, the reader will fall in love with the main character, Ellen. Great storytelling.