Renate Dorrestein

In a striking coming-of-age novel, a young Dutch woman living in suburban Amsterdam re-examines her past to understand why the heartbreak of her twelfth birthday still haunts her. Reprint.

For ten-year-old Christine, home is a hostile, troubling place. Her mother reserves her affection for her younger, live-in-lover, and for Waldo, Christine's teenage brother. Christine viciously takes out her angry feelings on her Barbies and on a weaker girl in her class. Then on a family holiday in Scotland, a tragic …