Chloe Doe » (Reprint)

Suzanne Phillips is a special education English teacher in San Diego, CA. Chloe Doe is her first novel.

I'm still two girls living inside one skin...
My soft center is the Chloe I was born to be;
the outer shell, as thick as armor, is the girl I was forced to become.

The place they send seventeen-year-old Chloe Doe is better than where she was. Better than the streets, or so she's told. The Madeline Parker Institute for Girls is the place that can change her— that is, if she can let go of the past that has nearly destroyed her.

Inspiring in her ability to overcome, Chloe Doe is poised to show the power of perseverance and, above all, hope.

Publishers Weekly

Sitting through months of probing therapy sessions can be an intense experience-especially when you're not the patient. In her abused-girl-on-the-run story, debut novelist Phillips piles on the requisite ingredients of a teenage melodrama: sexual abuse, prostitution, an incompetent mother and a brief stint in foster care. The story begins as 17-year-old Chloe is placed in the Madeline Parker Institute for Girls following an arrest for prostitution. She is belligerent, indignant and won't open up to anyone. But as her therapist chips away at her steely exterior, Chloe begins to reveal memories she never thought she'd share with anyone: her mother's dizzying train of live-in boyfriends, her stepfather's wandering hands and the first time she pleasures a john for money after running away from home. As Chloe relives each of these moments from her past, teens are given full access to her thoughts and emotions, thanks to Phillips's clear understanding of Chloe's tough yet vulnerable character. Unfortunately, the most shocking revelation of all-the reason Chloe severs ties with her family in the first place-isn't explained until the very end, which may leave many to wish they had learned the truth earlier. An exhausting but nonetheless authentic read. Ages 15-up. (June)