The Diary She Left Behind: A Daughter's Last Pages

From the back cover

Nicole lives under the roof of a "Model Family," ruled by her mother, the neighborhood's "Moral Role Model," whose public praise matters more than her own daughter. A stolen bite from the ancestral offering table earns her a bowl of dish soap water forced down her throat. When a neighbor's money goes missing, her mother drives an upholstery needle through all ten of her fingers — and never apologizes once the real thief is found.

Every wrong is marked in Nicole's diary, one crossed-out day at a time, against a promise she made to herself: when the last of its three hundred pages is gone, she will give this life back to her mother. Her one escape is art, and a first-place prize in the city's "Future Stars" competition, with a professor's praise and a shot at an arts academy, briefly makes her believe achievement might earn her mother's pride.

Instead her mother calls it a family disgrace, burns the drawings, and leaves Nicole's hand blistered at the fire pit's edge. Beneath the plaque of their "Model Family," the pages are running out.