Breaking Night: Liz Murray

This was an amazing book about a girl born to drug addicted parents and how she turned her life into something inspirational. Liz talks about her childhood growing up hungry, dirty, and basically neglected. She stops going to school at a young age because her mother lets her stay home from school and watch her get high. She rarely attends middle school because she is a social outcast after her lice incident. She didn't attend high school at all. Her mother finds a new boyfriend and moves her older sister in with them, Liz stays with her father- still using drugs, until child welfare take her away. Eventually she is released into her mother's care, whom is dying of AIDS. She eventually runs away from home and becomes homeless; crashing at friends’ houses once their parents leave. For a short time she lives in a hotel room with a boyfriend that deals drugs. He eventually gets addicted and Liz runs away and is back to looking for a place to sleep every night. She meets a girl who was also homeless and has gotten her life in order and is inspired to go back to school. She finds out she actually enjoys school and decides to try to get into college. To her surprise she wins a scholarship from Times Magazine and gets into Harvard. She finds out her father has AIDS, which her mother died from when she was homeless and not in school, and spends time taking care of him. She went on to start her own company helping others and is a motivational speaker. This book really made me think about all I took for granted growing up and how much I still take for granted.