Nowhere Girl: A Memoir of a Fugitive Childhood

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By the time she was eleven, the girl called Harbhajan had lived in more countries than she could count, with her family of five always on the run. Were they fleeing Interpol? Did she really have a grandfather in the secret police? Where did her family’s money come from, as there always seemed to be plenty? The truth took years, and many more changes of identity and location, to emerge.

Her older siblings became increasingly hateful and violent toward each other, and her volatile, charismatic father insisted on ironclad rules—that he himself would change on a whim. Young Bhajan (her nickname) learned to excel at gymnastics and swimming, and later, at trying to keep her imploding family from self-destruction. But the cost for her was painfully high and she suffered for years from the effort it required to mask her feelings and her family’s dysfunction.

As with all memories of exact conversations reported years later, suspend your disbelief and go along for the ride, as the story takes many unexpected twists and turns. Fans of Educated and The Glass Castle will enjoy this well-written memoir and may want to seek out the author’s other two books as well.


Reviewed By:

Author Cheryl Diamond
Star Count /5
Format Hard
Page Count 320 pages
Publisher Algonquin Books
Publish Date 15-Jun-2021
ISBN 9781616208202
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Issue July 2021
Category Biographies & Memoirs
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