Just a book

She comes in regularly, this round faced girl with her short black hair and sweet dark eyes. She smiles engagingly and asks the same question every time "Just a book to read?". I'm figuring out what sort of a book. Something contemporary. Something with a girl. Something sad - child abuse or kidnapping or crazy parents.

I look at her untroubled face, placidly demanding another story of a terrible childhood.

I suggest - have you read this one - that one - the one where the girl takes care of her autistic brother? the one where the mother abuses the girl? the one where the girl goes off to find her mother's past? "I read it" she says over and over again, "I read that one".