Girlbomb: A Halfway Homeless Memoir by Janice Erlbaum
Ben Wolinsky, reviewer
Some kids go through tough times with their families. Anyone who's worked as a teacher, social worker or juvenile corrections officer has probably seen the kids; angry, hostile, confused, and aimless. They can't live with their families, but who else will take them in. Some of them have abusive parents, other have emotional problems that their families can't handle.
Janice Erlbaum was one such kid. Her mother's live-in boyfriend was abusive, and her mother was too spinless to say no to him. So she give her mother an ultimatum; "either he goes or I go." Her mother balked, and Janice left. No where would she go? There were shelters for runaway teens, and that's where she ended up. But the people there weren't that sympathetic to her problem. The adults thought she was just a spoiled kid.
One of the themes in Girlbomb is temptation. When you're on your own at 14, there's all this temptation to take drugs, mess with boys, hang out in clubs where sex and drugs predominate. Janice makes a few bad choices, but fortunately, none of them lead to teen pregnancy or AIDS. I wonder sometimes, how can good Christians expect their kids to do likewise while at the same time allowing these impressionable adolescents to be bombarded right and left by sexualized filthy imagery? How can you expect your teenager son or daughter to dress appropriately when all they see are scantily clad, garishly made up, and foul mouthed teen girls with augmented breasts and tight skirts?
Read Girlbomb if you want to understand the pitfalls of modern day adolescence!
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