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Honorable Mention - 2008 NY Book Festival

"Sweet but not saccharine, emotionally generous...Halston lets the characters’ actions speak for them and, as a result, well-rounded personalities emerge. Charlie is a gem...a lovely piece of female confessional." - Kirkus Reviews

"If you laid out Charlie Lester's story in chronological order, it would resemble the conventional form of the hero's journey...the trials Charlie must face are based on being female, economically disenfranchised, and having no trustworthy family members to give her guidance. Charlie's journey will make middle-class parents blanch, but will be totally familiar to those of her generation. She is thrust into a world characterized by casual cruelties and sexual exploitation, where naiveté and economic desperation can force denigrating choices on people for no better reason than their own vulnerability." - Sarah Boslaugh, PLAYBACK:stl