An unputdownable true story that is "searing, brutal and breathtaking". A raw yet poetic look at deep family dysfunction, abuse, addictions, trauma, toxic relationships, mental health issues, struggles in recovery and hope.In 1980s apartheid Cape Town, five-year-old Desiree-Anne is grappling with how she's going to turn her tar baby doll's skin into soft lily-white. She doesn't know how to force her father to stop drinking or gambling or make her mother love her or get the boys and men to stop touching her in secret. As she grows up, she begins to understand the rules of living in her depressed family and fractured community. "Was I in trouble? Were they going to finally make sense of everything that had been happening to me? But no one said a word. I soon learned that this was how it worked in my family. We Never Talked About Things. Ever." In her teens, laden with the unbearable awkwardness of bushy, unruly hair and body dysmorphia, Desiree-Anne is also forced to confront her 'coloured identity crisis'. With a strong sense of not belonging, she turns to self-harm, disordered eating and the thrill of petty theft. She finds solace in books and acting, and after school is offered a place to study drama at university. She turns it down, weighed down by self-doubt and the fear of failure. As she continually searches for love but invariably attracts "broken' people, she follows one of her boyfriends to the UK, where she gets lost in the drinking culture and the Ecstasy scene. Upon her return to South Africa, she embraces the hedonistic "Rave Culture" and finds the acceptance she has searched for her entire life. Her life spirals out of control when she meets - and believes her love can fix - an intravenous heroin addict. Deceit. Madness. Crime. Sex work. These become her way of life. In this harrowing debut memoir of the darkness of addiction, mental health issues, abuse and the journey to finding recovery, Desiree-Anne uncovers her real voice to brilliantly write about things that were previously left unsaid.Take this rollercoaster ride through one girl-woman's journey as she faces impossible odds.This book has been described as visceral and scathingly real; a no-holds barred account of the author's battle with afflictions and addictions, sin and sex work, heartbreak and hope.Review by acclaimed author and academic, Barbara Boswell, author of the award-winning, "Grace, A Novel"."This weekend I read Desiree-Anne Martin's brilliantly-written and wrenching m