An audio book.
Bella, 15, has a sister, Ricky, 7. Her ex Dylan dumped her. Her grandma died less than a year before. Bella blames herself - she found the body. Her non-judgemental grandma introduced Bella to drink. Her father's left her mother. Bella secretly drinks - covid isolation hadn't helped. In her grandma's now empty house there's booze. She forgets that she calls friends for help in the night. Ricky doesn't get on with her father's new girlfriend.
Bella drinks too much at a party (having promised a friend, Amber, that she'd stop). When she exposes a breast for a dare, she's video'd. She's hospitalised with alcohol poisoning. She smashes her face in a fall. At a family therapy session her parents argue. She goes to a rehab clinic in the desert to escape them. She lies on questionnaires, dislikes the physical exercise, meets people worse off than her. She's in denial. Staff and patients share life stories. A room mate dies. Another ODs as she's about to be released because she has nowhere to go. Someone tricks Bella to drink on her last day. She has to start all over again.
When she gets home she finds that her mother has a dog and has sold grandma's house. Her dad's girlfriend has left him. Her dad has beer in the house. She can't stay there. Her mother has locked up the medicine. She gets into a fight on her first day back at school because of the video. Some of her friends are distancing themselves, others are supporting her. Josh, a seemingly caring boy she'd met at the rehab centre, asks her out and gives her a beer. She can't cope. Then she finds a routine.
The rehab section sounds well researched - until then it felt like a standard teenage angst piece. The audio book reader gives an impressive performance.
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