Imagine being asked to pull a gun on a stranger. Or having a gun shoved in your face by the man you call stepdad. Envision feeling so depressed you cut yourself repeatedly or down a bottle of pills to make the pain go away. Consider what it takes to tell your parents that you are transgender, or what it feels like to have the dad you love addicted to meth. We Are Absolutely Not Okay is a collection of unsparing true stories written by fourteen teenagers who have experienced life at its darkest but have made it through and are now picking up the pieces. By writing and sharing their stories, they are coping with their past and seizing their future. They are also reaching out to other teenagers-to let them know that they are not alone and that even if their life now is Absolutely Not Okay, they have the power within themselves to make it better.

Closing the Door on Pain. Opening the Door to Hope. Following in the footsteps of the nationally recognized We Are Absolutely Not Okay and You've Got It All Wrong, this third true story collection by Scriber Lake High School students explores painful secrets: addiction, incarceration, sexual identity, broken families, abuse, poverty, and death. By giving readers an inside look at the life struggles they've faced, these students are closing the door on painful pasts and opening doors to hope and happiness. Through their personal narratives, they are also reaching out to other teenagers, to let them know they are not alone and that life gets better.

From the publishers of We Are Absolutely Not Okay Druggie. Loser. Boozer. Dropout. Runaway. Delinquent. Slut. Labels can hurt and destroy-as the teen authors of this powerful true story collection know all too well. But are they true? Would you still think the same if you knew the challenges and circumstances these "labeled" teens have faced? In You've Got It All Wrong, twenty-one teenagers take readers into their lives as they struggle with homelessness, abandonment, death, addiction, abuse, and peer pressure. Through their narratives, they share the circumstances they faced and the decisions they made during their darkest hours. By revisiting their past and sharing their stories, these high school students are taking charge of their futures in a positive, powerful way. They are also reaching out to other teens to remind them that they aren't alone and that labels do not define who they are.

From the author of Hippie Boy: A Girl's Story Imagine walking into an eye doctor's office for the first time in your life expecting to walk out with a cute pair of red cat-eye frames--only to learn you suffer from an incurable degenerative eye disease and are already legally blind. In her powerful memoir FOCUS, Ingrid Ricks delves into the shock of discovering at age thirty-seven that she was in the advanced stages of Retinitis Pigmentosa, a devastating degenerative eye disease that doctors said would eventually steal her remaining eyesight. FOCUS takes readers into Ingrid's world as she faces the crippling fear of not being able to see her two young daughters grow up, of becoming a burden to her husband, of losing the career she loves, and of being robbed of the independence that defines her. Ultimately, FOCUS is about Ingrid's quest to fix her eyes that ends up fixing her life. Through an eight-year journey marked by a trip to South Africa to write about AIDS orphans, a four-day visit with a doctor who focuses on whole-body health, a relationship-changing confrontation with her husband and a life-changing lesson from her daughters, Ingrid learns to embrace the moment and see what counts in life--something no amount of vision loss can take from her.