“Childhood is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.”

(With apologies to Stephen Dedalus)

(I feel like I have to write something in this space, lest the universe explode.)

Miley Cyrus may be the best example going at the moment of a child who became public property (and if you don’t believe people are still possessive of her, why on earth do they feel compelled to explain what she does to their teen and tween daughters in terms of their daughters’ self-esteem and self-image?), but she is certainly not the first. She may, however, be doing an exceptionally good job of taking her self back. Are you going to tell her it’s not “her party”?

Teenage celebrity is part of what I believe makes the cultural phenomenon of teenageness so deeply fascinating. It’s why Sarah Aronson’s Believe was a manuscript I knew wanted to publish after I’d read five pages.

"I was fascinated by this thoughtful, twisty, and convincing story about faith in the media age. Halfway through, I felt so deeply for Janine that I found myself looking at my own hands and wondering what I'd do if I were her."

—Nancy Werlin, New York Times
bestselling author of Impossible and The Rules of Survival