Annie is the youngest of nine children in a poor Catholic family. Her dad works three jobs and is almost never home. Her mom suffers from depression, hoarding and is abusive. Annie has pretty much been raised by her older sisters and brother, some of whom are nice and others are definitely not. Luckily she has friends at school in Kristin and Jordan. Annie is very smart but has dyslexia so she has problems reading. It is 1985 and there isn't really a lot of help for her in school. 

This was kind of a dark story. There is a lot of neglect and abuse in Annie's life that is only partially resolved by the end of the story. It was interesting to see a huge family and how that changes the dynamic. What I found really interesting was that there were only about 10 years between the oldest and the youngest in the family. I am sure that is one of the reasons the mom was mentally shut off. She had basically been pregnant for a decade and couldn't handle it. Because this is set in the 1980s there is less of a push for mental health intervention and more of a social services intervention. I also thought it was interesting that the author chose to include the Challenger disaster in the narrative. I have not read any other stories that talk about that and it was a huge deal in the 80s.