Feeling rejected, Charlie, an artist, is drawn into a destructive new relationship with her sexy older co-worker, a 'semifamous' local musician who's obviously a junkie alcoholic.

But things don't go as planned in the Arizona desert, because sweet Mikey just wants to be friends. After spending time in treatment with other young women like her-who cut, burn, poke, and otherwise hurt themselves-Charlie is released and takes a bus from the Twin Cities to Tucson to be closer to Mikey, a boy she 'like-likes' but who had pined for Ellis instead. Seventeen-year-old Charlie Davis, a white girl living on the margins, thinks she has little reason to live: her father drowned himself her bereft and abusive mother kicked her out her best friend, Ellis, is nearly brain dead after cutting too deeply and she's gone through unspeakable experiences living on the street. In a strong emotional storyline, Nemesis faces revelations about whether she has a soul (as Sidonia is convinced) or is just a killing machine, “either a perfectly acceptable Diabolic or an abomination of a human being.” In her internal crisis, she finds unlikely allies-especially a political animal she doesn’t know if she can trust in the face of such complicated intrigues.Īfter surviving a suicide attempt, a fragile teen isn't sure she can endure without cutting herself. While depicting a post-Earth society in which skin and hair color are malleable, the book critiques power and class structures. Expanding her worldview beyond Sidonia-whom she loves unconditionally-Nemesis falls into a world of contrasts: elites versus the masses religious dogma versus science. Nemesis must keep her killer instincts in check to maintain the family’s treasonous deception. To protect Sidonia from being taken hostage or executed, they send Nemesis to impersonate her. When Sidonia’s heretic father angers the Emperor, Sidonia’s ordered to the Imperial Court. Sidonia Impyrean, heir to an important seat in the Senate, cares so deeply for her Diabolic, narrator Nemesis, that her family fakes Nemesis’ death. As this results in the ruthless killing of any perceived threats, Diabolics have been banned-retroactively. A genetically engineered killing-machine bodyguard must impersonate her charge in a dangerous galactic court.Ī Diabolic is specially bred to be the ultimate bodyguard, then bonded with the one person that it will serve.

The diabolic kincaid