Invisible Girl

Mary Hanlon Stone

- 4.2 • 22 Ratings

- $6.99

- $6.99

When poor Boston girl Stephanie is abandoned by her abusive mother and taken in by Annie?s Beverly Hills family, she feels anything but home. Her dark complexion and accent stick out like a sore thumb in the golden-hued world of blondes and extravagance. These are girls who seem to live life in fastforward, while Stephanie is stuck on pause. Yet when a new rival moves to town, threatening Annie?s queen-bee status, Stephanie finds herself taking sides in a battle she never even knew existed, and that feeling invisible is a wound that can only be healed by standing up for who she is.
Brilliant newcomer Mary Hanlon Stone delivers a compulsively readable insider?s view of growing up in a world where money and privilege don?t always glitter.

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY MAY 3, 2010

First-time author Stone debuts with a careful and challenging examination of clique politics. After Stephanie s abusive, alcoholic mother abandons the family, her ineffectual father ships her off to a wealthy family she has never met in Los Angeles, where Alpha girl Annie takes her under her wing ( Let s tell everyone we re real cousins ). Stephanie loves feeling included, but hiding her background and her true self soon becomes impossible. There is a lot of emotional territory for Stephanie to travel as she explores her troubled past and complex present. Readers may not feel like all of the story lines are examined completely; Stephanie s relationship with her mother, who hit her but also hugged me fiercely, seems more like a narrative device than a real part of her story. However, Stone demonstrates smart insight into how Annie s circle operates and how hard Stephanie works to be part of it ( I nod when she nods. I laugh when she laughs ). Though her inevitable transformation comes quick, readers will find it easy to rally for Stephanie as she becomes visible on her own terms. Ages 12 up.

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