A ripped-from-the-headlines novel of ambition, music, and innocence lost, perfect for fans of Elizabeth Acevedo and Jason Reynolds! Be bold. Get seen. Be Heard.For seventeen-year-old Denver, music is everything. Writing, performing, and her ultimate goal: escaping her very small, very white hometown.So Denver is more than ready on the day she and her best friends Dali and Shak sing their way into the orbit of the biggest R&B star in the world, Sean "Mercury" Ellis. Merc gives them everything: parties, perks, wild nights -- plus hours and hours in the recording studio. Even the painful sacrifices and the lies the girls have to tell are all worth it.Until they're not.Denver begins to realize that she's trapped in Merc's world, struggling to hold on to her own voice. As the dream turns into a nightmare, she must make a choice: lose her big break, or get broken.Inspired by true events, Muted is a fearless exploration of the dark side of the music industry, the business of exploitation, how a girl's dreams can be used against her -- and what it takes to fight back.

Alistair Collins never wanted to follow in the footsteps of his father, something that greatly disappointed the elder Major Collins. A talented musician like his mother, Alistair looked forward to a successful career in music. But when tragedy struck at home, grief mixed with guilt and despair changed the course of the musicians life and propelled him into the army and to a war that gave rise to a man he no longer knew. His struggle to regain his career and sanity in the aftermath of an unfortunate accident in the Gulf War and his constant battle with post-traumatic stress disorder added to the agony of his life. Forced to live in silence, his life had no meaning until his accidental encounter with the young talented musician Yvee Benton. Poignant and powerful, The Mutes Masquerade is an amazing insight into the results of PTSD and the unique effect of music and what it means to find tranquility in the midst of despair, contentment through a game of charade, and an everlasting hunger for lifes unending song.

When your life looks perfect, but you’re silently falling apart… If you were raised to believe that painful emotions are a sign of weakness, or if being vulnerable has always made you feel unsafe, then you may have survived by creating a perfect-looking life—a life where you appear to be successful, engaged, and always there for others. The problem? You’re filled with self-criticism and shame, and you can’t allow yourself to express fear, anger, loss, or grief. You recognize something is wrong, but you’re not sure what exactly—only that you feel trapped and alone. If this sounds like you, you may have perfectly hidden depression (PHD). With this compassionate guide, you’ll begin the process of understanding your perfectionism, identifying destructive beliefs, and connecting with emotions suppressed for far too long. You’ll also find tangible tips for quieting that critical inner voice, and powerful strategies for coping with difficult feelings. Most importantly, you’ll learn that asking for help isn’t a sign of weakness, but a sign of strength. If you’re ready to stop hiding and start healing, this groundbreaking book will guide you—every imperfect step of the way.

The Mute Christian under the Smarting Rod: with Sovereign Antidotes against the Most Miserable Exigents: A Christian with an Olive Leaf in his mouth, when he is under the greatest afflictions, the sharpest and sorest trials nod troubles, the saddest and darkest Providences and Changes, with Answers to divers Questions and Objections that are of greatest importance: all tending to win and work Souls to be still, quiet, calm and silent under all changes that have, or may pass upon them in this World

#1 New York Times Bestseller “Funny and smart as hell” (Bill Gates), Allie Brosh’s Hyperbole and a Half showcases her unique voice, leaping wit, and her ability to capture complex emotions with deceptively simple illustrations. FROM THE PUBLISHER: Every time Allie Brosh posts something new on her hugely popular blog Hyperbole and a Half the internet rejoices. This full-color, beautifully illustrated edition features more than fifty percent new content, with ten never-before-seen essays and one wholly revised and expanded piece as well as classics from the website like, “The God of Cake,” “Dogs Don’t Understand Basic Concepts Like Moving,” and her astonishing, “Adventures in Depression,” and “Depression Part Two,” which have been hailed as some of the most insightful meditations on the disease ever written. Brosh’s debut marks the launch of a major new American humorist who will surely make even the biggest scrooge or snob laugh. We dare you not to. FROM THE AUTHOR: This is a book I wrote. Because I wrote it, I had to figure out what to put on the back cover to explain what it is. I tried to write a long, third-person summary that would imply how great the book is and also sound vaguely authoritative—like maybe someone who isn’t me wrote it—but I soon discovered that I’m not sneaky enough to pull it off convincingly. So I decided to just make a list of things that are in the book: Pictures Words Stories about things that happened to me Stories about things that happened to other people because of me Eight billion dollars* Stories about dogs The secret to eternal happiness* *These are lies. Perhaps I have underestimated my sneakiness!

An innovative philosophical meditation on the muteness of Holocaust survivors and the human faculty of storytelling. In Storytelling, Rodolphe Gasché reexamines the muteness of Holocaust survivors, that is, their inability to tell their stories. This phenomenon has not been explained up to now without reducing the violence of the events to which survivors were subjected, on the one hand, and diminishing the specific harm that has been done to them as human beings, on the other. Distinguishing storytelling from testifying and providing information, Gasché asserts that the utter senselessness of the violence inflicted upon them is what inhibited survivors from making sense of their experience in the form of tellable stories. In a series of readings of major theories of storytelling by three thinkers—Wilhelm Schapp, whose work will be a welcome discovery to many English-speaking audiences, Walter Benjamin, and Hannah Arendt—Gasché systematically assesses the consequences of the loss of the storytelling faculty, considered by some an inalienable possession of the human, both for the victims’ humanity and for philosophy. “This book pursues the problem of what happens when the stories that are the object of narration become so enigmatic and troublesome that they withdraw from the realm of communicability and meaning into the space of a certain muteness. By focusing on Schapp, Benjamin, and Arendt, Gasché succeeds brilliantly in weaving together the three strands that are most vital to its subject: philosophical rigor, literary sensitivity, and historical concreteness.” — Gerhard Richter, author of Inheriting Walter Benjamin