A tragic tale of teenagers with an abusive father and addict mother, and of the loneliness that fear imposes on different children.

FLAWED tells of Sara and James, with an ex-boxer father who resents having to work in a mill to raise his family and gets drunk and violently abusive on a regular basis. Sara doesn't have any girl friends and hides her bruises and scars under long sleeves and jeans. She does the cooking and spends most of her life at school, in the library or locked in her room. Her brother James is older and overprotective of her, understandably, and has started work as well as boxing for money.

When James brings Sara out to a friend's party in the woods, she meets her idol Sam, who fancies her right back. But James is afraid to leave anyone alone with her and Sam understands that he needs to give the pair space. Later Sara secretly takes up an offer of a part-time job at Sam's mother's florist shop. This lets her meet Sam more often and they begin a romance. Drugs are a worry where James is concerned, as his friends are wild, and when the teens' mother is found dead of an overdose, James is implicated. Apart from worrying about her brother, Sara has to fear that her father will fix his anger on her next.

While Kate Arelynn has done a good job of bringing dysfunctional families and generational cycles of behaviour to our attention, showing that it is the children who are the real victims, this can be an uncomfortable read. Not everyone will want young adults they know to read about drug addiction, family abuse, violence and incest. On the other hand this could be a useful start to a family discussion on teen romance, the need to support friends and why a rushed marriage could be a bad bargain. The tale is well written and there are some lovely descriptive passages to engage us and show us that there is no need for life to be this way.