Goth Girl Rising

Goth Girl rising / Barry Lyga. -- New York : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009.
390 p. ; 22 cm.
Sequel to: The astonishing adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl
ISBN: 9780547076645

1. Emotional problems of teenagers -- Fiction. 2. Goth culture (Subculture) – Fiction. 3. Grief – Fiction. 4. High schools – Fiction. 5. Interpersonal relations – Fiction. 6. Mothers -- Death – Fiction. 7. Psychotherapy – Fiction. 8. Schools – Fiction. 9. Teenage girls – Fiction.

813.6

Kyra Sellers, Goth Girl of The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl is back from her stay at the Maryland Mental Health Unit, sent there, she discovers, because of her condition: a severe case of DCHH, Daddy Couldn't Handle Her. Her mom went to the hospital and died, but Kyra figures she’s tougher than her mom.

So watch out people at South Brook High. Kyra swings between sad and angry. Sad is hopeless, powerless and confusing, but anger, anger gives you the power to do something and a target to hit. She knows her father Roger and the teachers are after her. She’s not sure about her friends Jecca (formerly known as Jessica) and Simone. And then there’s Fanboy; she could talk to Fanboy and things felt better. But Fanboy betrayed her. He called her father and told Roger that she had a bullet. And then for the six months she was locked in DCHH he never called her, never sent an e-mail—just like Jecca didn’t. Well,

“Eff all them.

And eff him too.

Who said he could be happy? Who said he could just forget about me?”

Kyra’s side of the story is an excellent portrayal of the anger that boils up from the hopelessness of grief, and the hope born of love and honesty to bind the wounds of life and death.