Stranger in My Skin: A Memoir

Stranger in My Skin is the taut, compelling tale of Alysa Phillips's strange struggle toward adulthood. Growing up in a conventional Utah town with an exacting father who even counts the family's food, the young author becomes entangled with a menacing boyfriend, his cult-leader father, and the deranged vagabond who kidnapped Elizabeth Smart. Instead of finding enlightenment in the severe and polygamous cult, she begins an obsession of self-mutilation and "geographical cures" that only accentuate the tenacity of her traumas. This is a story that will wake you in the middle of the night with an itchy question, compel you to mull over the simple sigh of a co-worker, and wonder anew at the mysterious complexities of human suffering and of human endurance.