Cherry blossom lipstick: check Smokey eyes: check Skinny jeans: check Dead kid in the mirror: check For sixteen year old Mattie Hathaway, this is her normal everyday routine. She's been able to see ghosts since her mother tried to murder her when she was five years old. No way does she want anyone to know she can talk to spooks. Being a foster kid is hard enough without being labeled a freak too. Normally, she just ignores the ghosts and they go away. There's a little glitch this time. The ghost she sees is her foster sister, Sally. Everyone thinks she's just another runaway. Mattie knows the truth, though-she's dead, murdered. Foster kids look out for each other and Mattie feels like she has to help Sally, but she can't do it alone. Against her better judgment, she teams up with a young police officer and together they set out to discover the truth of Sally's disappearance. Now the killer has set his sights on her. It becomes a race to see if she can find the truth before the serial killer finds her.

Marie wanted to be as good as her mother wanted. Since her older brother was diagnosed with autism, she is considered the family's "normal" child. She thus feels she must be perfect in every way, which soon turns out to be a haunting task. Desperate for love and to make sense of her mother's contradictory behaviors and spiritual changes (from her mother's infidelities and alcoholism to a strict religious cult, and back again), Marie starts a friendship with a make belief friend, Ana. Ana is beautiful, loving, all-knowing and lives in an older version of Marie's house. Ana is the best friend one could hope for...that is until she encourages you to pursue a life threatening path. A book loosely based on my life: my relationship with my mother, my father, my autistic brother and my sister; my life in a cult; and my battle with anorexia. Nevertheless, this book is a work of fiction (imaginary friend, haunted house, mystical creatures, paranormal, etc).