Don’t Pity the Desperate

A Rebel’s Story

Ever wonder what it’s like to be locked up in a recovery center? Ever sent your teenager to one and been concerned about what might be happening to her or him? If so, you should read Anna B. Moore’s Don’t Pity the Desperate, an authentic and insightful novel of a teenager locked away in a place where she can develop her sense of self and take responsibility for her choices and actions.

Myra is a rebel, like many but certainly not all of the teenagers I taught in the ’80s. She loves testing the boundaries, but her self-esteem is low and she makes risky choices. It’s a part of growing up—until she endangers her life by mixing Elavil and alcohol and passes out. When the police find her, they contact her father, and he moves her to a recovery home for teens.

There, she searches for the truth about who she’s becoming and reasons to turn her life around and turn her life over to the care of a God of her understanding. She’s discontented with many of the procedures, especially the group sessions, the Twelve Steps, her powerlessness, and the concept of a God who’s there for her. Most of all, though, she can’t get past the fact that her mother died, leaving a hole that her father can’t fill no matter how hard he tries. She reflects on her past, falls in love regularly, and makes plans for the day she gets out. As she does so, and as she experiences the challenges of being locked up, her outlook slowly shifts.

The author understands the mind of this teenager, whose thoughts fluctuate faster than the score in a high school basketball game. Not that her narrator, Myra, would be in the bleachers. She’s more likely to be outside making out or drinking and smoking. Myra will turn into a great journal writer someday, and if I’m saying that, you can see how real she is to me. I once knew her, though I didn’t know her well, and the comments of former students I’m in touch with on Facebook convince me that she’ll outgrow this troubling phase and use lots of reflection and writing to figure things out.

My favorite phrase in the book, “Myra didn’t say,” followed truth after truth that she wasn’t ready to share with her peers in Community. Maturing is a process and this book hones in on it in vivid imagery that swirls across the page.

Speaking of swirls, the cover art is a reflection of Myra’s mind, and the mind of many teens whose lives are brimming with possibilities.
Take a trip back to the eighties and see what you remember and who you know who’s much like Myra.