Editorial: Art and Alienation, or, Can Books Save Lives?

Sara Zarr, author of Story of a Girl, has an essay up at ASIF! that's worth checking out:

One reason I read when I was a kid and teen was to feel understood.  When I cracked open THE CHOCOLATE WAR for the first time I remember feeling that finally, finally, someone out there really understood the hell it was to be fourteen years old. Whenever I read a Madeleine L'Engle book, I knew it was okay to be smart---something kids in my junior high used as an insult over and over again.  ("You're so smart."  It came out sounding exactly the same as, "You're so ugly."  I recently got an email from an adult who read about my book, and said that her own sexual promiscuity in high school started in an effort to hide and change her identity as the "smart girl.") I sought out books that featured alcoholic parents, because I had one and wanted to know I wasn't alone.