Part of being a teenager is having your parents and siblings drive you crazy. It happens to all of us; we love our families but they do get on our nerves. But what happens if one day you woke up, and your whole family was taken away from you?

In THE GIRL DEATH LEFT BEHIND, McDaniel explores this premise in a sensitive and forthright way. Beth is a normal girl with a normal family life until one afternoon, a horrible automobile accident kills her parents and younger siblings. Suddenly her whole life is shattered. Beth's only living relatives are her mother's sister, Camille, Camille's husband, and their daughter, Beth's cousin, Terri. Beth and her cousin have never seen eye-to-eye, and now Beth has to leave her home and her friends behind to live with her cousin in a new town with a new school.

McDaniel has made a successful career out of writing novels about death and suffering and how they affect her teenage protagonists. She does so in a sensitive and realistic way, managing to avoid melodrama while creating very sympathetic characters. Although she'd have every reason to be, Beth is no martyr, but rather a normal teenager dealing with very abnormal circumstances and struggling to redefine the terms of home and family. THE GIRL DEATH LEFT BEHIND is a rewarding and well-written book.

   --- Reviewed by Jordan Baker


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