Disappear Home - Hardcover

"A bittersweet coming-of-age story buoyed by Shoshanna's small triumphs as she learns to stand tall despite the circumstances." Booklist, February 1, 2015

"This realistic debut inspires with a grounded heroine who comes of age as she 'disappears home.'" Kirkus Reviews, January 15, 2015

"Hurwitz establishes a strong sense of tension that never lets up--the question of whether Adam will find the runaways looms over the story." Publishers Weekly, January 9, 2015

"Hurwitz's descriptions of California and progressive cultural movements create a vivid and accurate landscape. A good purchase for teens who dig stories about cults and the hippie movement." School Library Journal, March 1, 2015

In 1970, as the hippie movement is losing its innocence, Shoshanna and her six-year-old sister, Mara, escape from Sweet Earth Farm, a declining commune, run by their tyrannical and abusive father, Adam. Their mother, Ella, takes them to San Francisco, where they meet one of her old friends, Judy, and the four of them decide to head off and try to make a life together. Finding a safe haven at the farm of kind, elderly Avery Elliot, the four of them find some measure of peace and stability. Then their mother’s crippling depression returns. Confused and paranoid, Ella is convinced that she and the girls must leave before Adam finds them and extracts revenge. The girls don’t wish to leave the only stable home they’ve ever had. But as Ella grows worse and worse, events conspire to leave them to face a choice they never could have imagined. Shoshanna has always watched over her sister and once again she has to watch over her ailing mother. Will she ever live a "normal" life?