Twist

"The mystery is how I managed to survive, and whether or not Maddie Twist remains alive and well and living like Brel in Paris, or beyond."

Adele Bertei's memoir Twist threads together the tapestry of her troubled childhood in the 60s and 70s, through the eyes of her alter ego Maddie Twist. Her beautiful mother suffers delusions of grandeur brought on by schizophrenia, bringing wonders and horrors to the Bertei home. Soon, Bertei and her two younger brothers become wards of the state of Ohio and by the time she is of middle school age, Maddie Twist has moved through—or run away from—two Cleveland foster homes and a detention home for teenagers.

At the Marycrest School for Wayward Girls, she finally finds some stability, but after she is caught kissing another girl, she's on the run again, this time landing herself in a maximum security reformatory school for girls, all before her fifteenth birthday. With each new posting, Maddie discovers…