Stray: A Memoir of a Runaway

Marquardt’s memoir is a brutally honest reflection on her fraught adolescence and journey of self-realization. Marquardt relays the dysfunctional circumstances of her family in British Columbia, focusing on the complicated relationship between her parents: “The tension between Mom and Dad was palpable even though they lived in different towns... and I acting as go-between for two people who hated each other.” Marquardt left home at 16 to live with various friends, and made every attempt to avoid returning to her mother’s home, even though she tried to understand her: “I played like I hated her, but... I would go through her vanity and jewelry box... because I wanted evidence of her, of who she was.” In Vancouver she found outcasts and peers of similar backgrounds: “When I was with Lana, Garret, and Adam, it was like I was living in a microcosm, a world hidden within a world hidden within a world.... We were a bunch of kids playing at being Lost Boys, looking for our version of Neverland.” Hers is an entirely relatable teenage journey: at once sensitive and selfish, desperate and brash. This is an edgy memoir about a young woman trying to understand herself. [em](Sept.) [/em]