It's been a year since her Aunt Linda left for good, and since then fourteen year old Lacey has been forced to take care of her mentally ill mother, Angela, by herself. Angela is convinced that she sees the ghost of her dead father and that he tells her what to do and how to live, much as he did when he was alive. It's these visions and hallucinations that have left Angela incapacitated.

In an attempt to gain some freedom and some income for both of them, Lacey takes matters into her own hands and finds her mother a job as a cashier at the local Winn-Dixie while she plans to volunteer at the local library.

Hoping against hope that she will have one ordinary day and maybe make a friend in the process, Lacey rides with her mom on the bus, drops her off at the grocery store, and then travels on to the library. A neighbor boy, Aaron, happens to be on the same bus, and the two teens awkwardly strike up a conversation, but it's a start and Lacey is optimistic. Maybe today is going to be okay after all. But when she and Aaron return to the grocery store later that afternoon to discover that her mother had been fired a hour into her first shift, and was now missing, Lacey's world begins to quickly spiral out of control once again. It becomes her mission to find her mother before anything tragic incident happens.

Part terrifying ghost story, part unimaginable mystery, MILES FROM ORDINARY by Carol Lynch Williams is an incredibly disturbing story of one teenaged girl's desperate plea for help that falls on the deaf ears of an entire community. Aimed at a young-adult reading audience, this is well-written and fast moving story. However I would be hard pressed to recommend this book for anyone under the age of 18 without an adult first reading it, because there are bound to be tons of questions to be answered about mental illness, suicide, and the effects of child neglect after a reading of this story.

Book Summary

Thirteen-year-old Lacey wakes to a beautiful summer morning excited to begin her new job at the library, just as her mother is supposed to start work at the grocery store. Lacey hopes that her mother's ghosts have finally been laid to rest; after all, she seems so much better these days, and they really do need the money. Lacey has no father, and has always been an outcast at school. People mock her when she’s with her mother on the bus. But today could be different: there’s the beginning of a friendship with a boy from school, she’s working at a new job that reminds Lacey of her cherished Aunt Linda.

But as the hours tick by and memories come flooding back, a day full of hope spins terrifyingly out of control....

Read an Excerpt