Teen Fiction - Body, Mind & Health, Teen Fiction - Family & Relationships, Teen Fiction - Sexuality

Chloe Doe

Name: Chloe Doe
Author: Suzanne Phillips
ISBN: 9780316014144

by Suzanne Phillips

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Overview

I'm still two girls living inside one skin...
My soft center is the Chloe I was born to be;
the outer shell, as thick as armor, is the girl I was forced to become.

The place they send seventeen-year-old Chloe Doe is better than where she was. Better than the streets, or so she's told. The Madeline Parker Institute for Girls is the place that can change her— that is, if she can let go of the past that has nearly destroyed her.

Inspiring in her ability to overcome, Chloe Doe is poised to show the power of perseverance and, above all, hope.

Synopsis

I'm still two girls living inside one skin...
My soft center is the Chloe I was born to be;
the outer shell, as thick as armor, is the girl I was forced to become.

Inspiring in her ability to overcome, Chloe Doe is poised to show the power of perseverance and, above all, hope.

Publishers Weekly

Sitting through months of probing therapy sessions can be an intense experience-especially when you're not the patient. In her abused-girl-on-the-run story, debut novelist Phillips piles on the requisite ingredients of a teenage melodrama: sexual abuse, prostitution, an incompetent mother and a brief stint in foster care. The story begins as 17-year-old Chloe is placed in the Madeline Parker Institute for Girls following an arrest for prostitution. She is belligerent, indignant and won't open up to anyone. But as her therapist chips away at her steely exterior, Chloe begins to reveal memories she never thought she'd share with anyone: her mother's dizzying train of live-in boyfriends, her stepfather's wandering hands and the first time she pleasures a john for money after running away from home. As Chloe relives each of these moments from her past, teens are given full access to her thoughts and emotions, thanks to Phillips's clear understanding of Chloe's tough yet vulnerable character. Unfortunately, the most shocking revelation of all-the reason Chloe severs ties with her family in the first place-isn't explained until the very end, which may leave many to wish they had learned the truth earlier. An exhausting but nonetheless authentic read. Ages 15-up. (June)

About the Author, Suzanne Phillips

Suzanne Phillips is a special education English teacher in San Diego, CA. Chloe Doe is her first novel.

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Editorials

Publishers Weekly

VOYA - Robin Guedel

In this story of a seventeen-year-old girl who finds herself on the wrong side of the tracks, Chloe gives herself the generic last name of Doe after she is been sent to a group home for girls when arrested for prostitution. Chloe narrates the story, alternating back and forth between her daily activities with other female misfits and her life growing up with her sister Camille. After many long sessions with a psychiatrist, Chloe begins to see a light at the end of a very long tunnel. In this debut novel, Phillips provides an intense but fulfilling read. A translation guide at the beginning of the book of the common Spanish words that Chloe uses throughout makes for smoother reading. Phillips is excellent at letting the story of Chloe's troubled childhood unfold with just enough mystery to keep the reader engaged. The sessions that Chloe has with her psychiatrist are powerful as Chloe uncovers her fears and what got her to this low point in her life. This book is ideal for older teens who might come from troubled families or who have had some tough experiences in their lives. It is an inspirational story, offering hope that everyone can have a second chance.

KLIATT - Myrna Marler

Take a 17-year-old girl, a genius who loves to read, and let her tell the story of how she became a teenage prostitute and what life is like in the Madeline Parker Institute for Girls where she's been confined until she's "well" enough to go back out on her own. The tone and voice might be very much like this novel, often non-linear, by turns cynical and yearning, and flattened emotionally because of the traumas of the past. In the end, thanks to the patience and attention of Chloe's psychiatrist and her own innate desire to live, Chloe becomes open to the potential of life. Because of its non-linear style, the suspense regarding what happened to turn Chloe into the girl who will have sex with anyone who feeds her and gives her a place to sleep builds at the same time as her relationship with the psychiatrist turns from edgy and hostile to one of trust. The language is sharp and engaging, even lyrical at times, and her emergence from a kind of living death (she sleeps in a coffin-like cardboard box in a room without windows) into a life with direction and purpose, but not without tragedy and disappointment, is believable. The themes are, of course, overcoming loss and having the courage to turn away from the hardened shell Chloe has so carefully constructed in order to survive. The novel is both moving and gritty, completely avoiding easy sentimentality.

Kirkus Reviews

"Doe" is the last name Chloe has adopted for herself, a label of anonymity that separates her from her mother and her mother's string of worthless boyfriends. After a traumatic incident at home, which Chloe doesn't reveal until near the end of the story, Chloe runs away from home and makes a living as a prostitute until she's picked up by the police. Because she's underage, she's given the choice of juvenile hall or the Madeline Parker Hospital. A toss of a coin sends her to Madeline Parker, where a compassionate doctor and highly structured living help Chloe to face the monsters of her past. In spare dialogue and memories, she tells a story of abuse and murder, and through therapy she begins to gain the courage to go back into the world and, as she puts it, live. Although Chloe's voice is often wise beyond her years, even given her life experience, readers will stay with Chloe's story. This hard look at one life in a lockdown facility may appeal to fans of Adam Rapp and Ellen Hopkins. (Fiction. YA)