Price, Charlie. Dead Girl Moon.

Price, Charlie.   Dead Girl Moon.   Macmillan/Farrar Strauss  2012  263p  $17.99  978-0-374-31752-2     hs  Realistic Fiction     VG-BN

Grace felt she had no choice but to run away from home, which was nothing but a living hell of sexual abuse and negligent care.  She figured by running away she could find a place where she would work and maybe study, too.  Then she hit a town in Montana that seemed to be okay.  People there did not ask too many questions, and immediately she was placed in foster care.  There she met another girl and a small unruly bratty boy.  The house stunk, but since no questions were asked, she decided to stay a while.  She became friendly with a girl named JJ and another boy who also arrived under suspicious circumstances.  Mick lived with his dad, who was abusive but had not left him behind the way his mother did.

These young adults develop an uncomfortable friendship that brings them together to face scary circumstances that could land them in jail or even in the grave.  Now the trick is staying alive and staying one step ahead of the bad guys, so that they can find the evidence to survive the wave of evil that is slowly coming at them.

This novel is very intense from the first page.  It is not for the faint of heart.  I found it to be realistic and painful, as the characters are flawed teenagers trying to find their own piece of happiness in a world full of evil and greed.        

Murder – Fiction, Crime – Fiction                                 --Magna Diaz