In this story of perseverance in the face of adversity, Regina Calcaterra recounts her childhood in foster care and on the streets and how she and her savvy crew of homeless siblings managed to survive years of homelessness, abandonment, and abuse. Regina Calcaterra's emotionally powerful memoir reveals how she endured a series of foster homes and intermittent homelessness in the shadow of the Hamptons, and how she rose above her past while fighting to keep her brother and three sisters together.

At 28, Stephanie Land's dreams of attending a university and becoming a writer quickly dissolved when a summer fling turned into an unplanned pregnancy. Before long, she found herself a single mother, scraping by as a housekeeper to make ends meet. Maid is an emotionally raw, masterful account of Stephanie's years spent in service to upper-middle-class America as a "nameless ghost" who quietly shared in her clients' triumphs, tragedies, and deepest secrets.

For someone who made a career out of oversharing on the Internet, Tyler Oakley has a shocking number of personal mishaps and shenanigans to reveal in his first book: He experienced a legitimate rage blackout in a Cheesecake Factory; he had a fashion stand-off with the White House Secret Service; he crashed a car in front of his entire high school in an Arby's uniform; he projectile vomited while bartering with a grandmother.

Kristina Georgia Snow is the perfect daughter: gifted high school junior, quiet, never any trouble. But on a trip to visit her absentee father, she meets a boy who introduces her to crank. At first she finds it freeing, but soon Kristina's personality disappears inside the drug. What began as a wild, ecstatic ride turns into a struggle through hell for her mind, her soul, and her life.

Growing up on welfare, food stamps, and Greyhound buses, Holly Thompson Rehder quit school at fifteen to help take care of her mother and younger sister after a devastating car accident. Getting married and pregnant soon thereafter, Holly decided that the life she had been born into was not what she intended to give her child. Two decades later she was a successful businesswoman. And today, she is a rising political star who serves as an inspiration to young women across the state of Missouri—and indeed, the entire nation—all while never forgetting where she came from.

In her 30s, Judy Cochrane had by most standards realized the American Dream. In 2000, her husband Bill’s start-up company sold for 90 million. Their college romance and tireless work ethic built a bright future for their family, as well as a portfolio of 35 million. But just as the stars aligned for the 90 million sale of their company, they also fell apart. They went from living in a gated home perched on a mountaintop in Tucson, Arizona, to life in a beat-up rental, without job security and on food stamps.

Our prisons and mental hospitals are filled with tragic stories like Tuesday Storm's. Her early childhood was riddled with torturous "games" and violent physical attacks. She was isolated from the rest of her family, locked in an attic with nothing but a bare bed and a bucket for a toilet, and fed just enough to be kept alive. The experts say it's next to impossible to find the soul's light in a dark past like Tuesday's.

In answer to the question of what happened following her New York Times best seller Kabul Beauty School, Deborah Rodriquez is back with a new memoir Irreverent, insightful, and blatantly honest, Deborah takes us along on her inspiring journey of self-discovery and renewal after she is forced to flee Afghanistan in 2007. She first lands in California, where she feels like a misfit teetering on the brink of sanity. Where was that fearless redhead who stared danger in the face back in Kabul?

In her best-selling memoir North of Normal, Cea wrote with grace about her unconventional childhood - her early years living in a tipi in Alberta with her pot-smoking, free-loving counterculture family. But her struggles do not end when she leaves her family at the age of 13 to become a model. Honest and daring, Nearly Normal reveals the many ways that Cea's unconventional childhood continues to reverberate through the years.

When Candice Curry was a little girl, she put her hand in her father's back pocket so that she wouldn't get lost in large crowds. Little did she know that as she followed him, he was plying his trade: conning people. Her family drove stolen cars, lived in stolen houses, and shopped with stolen credit cards. Drug use was regular, as were visits from strange people who were trying to track her father down. Though she eventually cut ties with her father, Candice could not ignore the scars that were left from her childhood.

Chris Gethard has often found himself in awkward situations most people, including you, probably would have safely avoided. The good news is now, thanks to this book, you can enjoy the painfully funny consequences of his unfortunate decisions at a safe distance. A Bad Idea I'm About to Do invites listeners to join Chris as he navigates an adolescence and adulthood mired in hilariously ill-fated nerdom, and to take comfort in the fact that - as his experiences often prove - things could always be much, much worse.

A lyrical and authentic book that recounts the story of a border-town family in Brownsville, Texas in the 1980s, as each member of the family desperately tries to assimilate and escape life on the border to become "real" Americans, even at the expense of their shared family history. This is really un-mined territory in the memoir genre that gives in-depth insight into a previously unexplored corner of America.

Novelists Jonathan Moss and Sage Merriweather should be a perfect match. They share not only the same publisher but also a deep friendship full of mutual respect and encouragement. But when an ill-fated attempt at taking their relationship to the next level fails in spectacular fashion, it appears as though that once-treasured bond is doomed for good. One year later, however, the duo gets a chance to salvage their relationship when Jonathan invites Sage on a do-over road trip from Phoenix to Tacoma.

The Kaufmans have always considered themselves a normal, happy family. Curtis is a physics teacher at a local high school. His wife, Kathleen, restores furniture for upscale boutiques. Daniel is away at college on a prestigious music scholarship, and 12-year-old Olivia is a happy-go-lucky kid whose biggest concern is passing her next math test. And then comes the middle-of-the-night phone call that changes everything.

In April 2002, Janine Latus' youngest sister, Amy, wrote a note and taped it to the inside of her desk drawer. "Today Ron Ball and I are romantically involved", it read, "but I fear I have placed myself at risk in a variety of ways. Based on his criminal past, writing this out just seems like the smart thing to do. If I am missing or dead this obviously has not protected me...."