I wasn't expecting to like this one as much as I did for some reason (I'm guessing the whole Oprah's book club thing still throws me off a bit). I had a hard time getting into it at first, mainly because Astrid's mother is just so out-there weird. It broke my heart to watch Astrid go through the various foster homes but I was glad that she was strong enough to pull through without messing herself up *too* much.

I'm planning on watching the movie version of this soon to see if it measures up!