“So funny and heartfelt.” —Gene Luen Yang, author of American Born Chinese “I love the profound honesty of I’m Ok.” —Newbery Medalist Linda Sue Park Ok Lee is determined to find the perfect get-rich-quick scheme in this funny, uplifting novel for fans of Counting by 7s and Crenshaw. Ok Lee knows it’s his responsibility to help pay the bills. With his father gone and his mother working three jobs and still barely making ends meet, there’s really no other choice. If only he could win the cash prize at the school talent contest! But he can’t sing or dance, and has no magic up his sleeves, so he tries the next best thing: a hair braiding business. It’s too bad the girls at school can’t pay him much, and he’s being befriended against his will by Mickey McDonald, an unusual girl with a larger-than-life personality. Then there’s Asa Banks, the most popular boy in their grade, who’s got it out for Ok. But when the pushy deacon at their Korean church starts wooing Ok’s mom, it’s the last straw. Ok has to come up with an exit strategy—fast.

Your grief is unique and so is this book. You are not losing your mind, you are not alone, and there is hope. If you feel overwhelmed and lost while struggling through the painful aftermath of death, this easy-to-read and understand book was written for you. It contains short shared anecdotes of encouragement, support, and useful information from everyday people who have experienced the minute by minute, day by day struggle death creates. An alphabetic index guides you to topics and shows that grief runs the gamut from A-Z. After a death, the brain needs understandable language, with short words and phrases, preferably in point form. There are lines at the end of each letter, for your personal thoughts and emotions. When platitudes don't help, the words in this book will.

A guilt-free guide for adults seeking more satisfying relationships with their parents In a recent study, half of all Americans rated their relationship with at least one parent as either "poor" or "terrible," and more than a third felt this way about both parents. As life expectancy continues to rise and the parent-child relationship extends further into adulthood, this problem is becoming more prevalent than ever. Now, psychologist Dale Atkins presents a step-by-step plan for adults trying to come to terms with parents who are only human--before it is too late. In I'm OK, You're My Parents, Atkins applies the same intelligent, no-nonsense approach that's made her a frequent guest on top-rated TV shows. She urges a restructuring of the relationships between adults and their aging parents and gives practical, specific advice on how to exorcise the demons of anger and resentment, untangle financial arrangements that cause stress and feelings of powerlessness, set limits on your parents' demands for time and attention, turn a spouse or friends into a powerful resource, overcome your own resistance to change, and discover the redemptive power of humor. This book draws on Atkins' twenty-five years of experience as a relationship expert to present a comprehensive guide to repairing difficult relationships, gaining control, and building a life that you and your parents can live with for years to come.

Heartfelt and bittersweet, this coming-of age story explores the tender space of healing where grief meets love A year ago, Gage survived a car accident that killed his best friend, Hunter. Without the person who always brought out the best in him, Gage doesn’t know who he is. He likes working as a fry cook and loves his small-town friends and family, but they weren’t in the wreck and he can’t tell them how much he’s still hurting. He just wants to forget all his pain and move on. So when his stepdad shows him a dream job opening in one of his idol’s restaurants, Gage knows this is his chance to convince everyone and himself that he’s fine. To try to push past his grief once and for all, Gage applies for the job, asks out a crush, and volunteers to host a memorial for Hunter. But the more Gage tries to ignore his grief, the more volatile it becomes. When his temper finally turns on the people he loves, Gage must decide what real strength is—holding in his grief until it destroys him, or asking for help and revealing his broken heart for all to see.

If you can remember a screen door slamming shut and your mother yelling after you, In or out, youre letting flies in the kitchen, then you will enjoy this collection of short stories about growing up in the Deep South at a time when things were a little slower and much simpler. Most are true as best as I can recall and you are certain to find something that reminds you of yourself or someone you know.

'I have been waiting for this book my entire life. It's brilliant.' - Claudia Winkleman 'A genius book. So funny, so wise, so cool and above all so USEFUL. I couldn't love it more. I am buying it for every one of my friends.' - India Knight 'I'm absolutely fine but I slightly need to pee, I followed the road less travelled and now I don't know where the hell I am, I may bleed to death shaving my legs, my soul aches, another week has ended without me becoming accidentally rich, I just put my keys in the fridge, unexpected object in the bagging area, I'll have a café mocha vodka Valium latte to go please, where's my phone? My anxieties have anxieties, no... not like that - here, I'll do it, do I have to do everything? WTF?' Is it just me? We gnaw on that, don't we? Is it just me? Well, look around. Look at the rage, the resolution, the 'hear me roar', the panic, the power, the chin hairs, the shame, the empathy, the conversation, the sheer potential. Welcome to Midulthood. A place where we recognise that we are all more alike than we are unalike. Of course it's not just you. If we're not in it together, we're not in it at all... From sex (What Could Possibly Go Wrong) to self-image (Does This Straightjacket Make Me Look Fat?), I'm Absolutely Fine is a wry look at real life, real wisdom and real information framed in fun.

“Five years ago, my 16-year old daughter, Aeryn, took her own life. Even now, those words still don't feel real. I have found it virtually impossible to separate thoughts and memories of my daughter from the cold, hard, terrifying fact of her death, from the depression that robbed us of her. I want my daughter to be so much more than just a statistic, another suicide in an age of increasing mental health troubles in our society. But the truth is, for those that didn't know her, she will be defined by her death. And I need to make that count. I need to tell her story.” Aeryn's diaries provide a frank, brutally honest account of teenage depression, while her haunting yet beautiful poetry paints a graphic picture of her feelings. Interspersed with Facebook posts, email correspondence and her mother's diaries, they document the last few months of her life and the aftermath of her death. In sharing Aeryn's story, Ellen hopes to help other families going through similar experiences, and to increase understanding of the depth of pain that depression can cause, a pain so deep and all consuming that there appears to be only one way to escape it.

In "Slices," Violet Wilson looks back at her first years away from home, first at college, then after dropping out, as she struggles to make sense of her urges to cut herself. She doesn't offer neatly wrapped-up explanations of her motivations; the vignettes focus on what she thought and how she felt in the moment. The few dispassionate memories of childhood abuse are not served up as "A-ha!" explanations, since that's not how it felt at the time. There is a lot of confusion, a lot of shame, and a lot of failed attempts to connect. But there are also some patient friends, a couple of morbidly comic moments in a mental hospital and at a funeral, and, by the end, a tiny smidgen of hope that Violet will find her way.

I am one who has come to true love in the last third of their lives. First of all almost broken in my life, I found myself based on the fact much later discovering that experience with love and broken heart I remained inside, open to love, and chance was no longer a coincidence, and exactly the right opposite of me feels addressed, and he knew before that he would probably fall in love with me. It is a voluntary matter, and nobody can foresee when that will be the case !