Dark Song by Gail Giles 292 pages

This is a very dark story...almost ripped from the headlines. Ames Ford's perfect life shreds to pieces when her father gets fired from his job and her mother turns into a zombie. Well, not a real zombie, but like an automaton afraid that they will sink into the dire poverty she was raised in. Mom sells like everything, even her sister's stuffed animal collection and they move to a shack owned by her dad's here-to-unmentioned parents. Her life becomes a nightmare and into this nightmare rides Marc, her hero. Marc has wells of anger and is not the uncomplicated nice kid he appears to be to her parents. He rapes her and shows her his gun collection. His plans for her rescue amounts to the destruction of her family. Can Ames find a solution to her worst problem? Gripping reading.