Flyaway grabbed me from the start and I didn’t stop until the final decision was made.  Stevie is a junior in high school with too much on her figurative plat and very little on her real plate.  Her mother’s “profession” gets her harrassed at school and her mother’s personal choices keep Stevie’s mind racing as to her mother’s safety.  With issues no high school student should have to deal with, but probably too many of our actually do, Flyaway is a fierce account of one girl’s mental fight to do what is right just for her.  Helen Landalf does not shy away from any of the issues she brings up.  Drugs and alcohol abuse keep this title for the older young adult audience, but I particularly like the brutal honesty that comes from all of Landalf’s characters.  Stevie is not an angel herself, but she will make the right choices to lift herself to better places in the end.  This is highly recommended for high school libraries.