All We Know of Heaven

A critically-acclaimed novel about a teenaged girl in Depression-era North Carolina, who falls in love with a charming but abusive man. Soon, she's a wife and mother caught in a spiral of betrayal and madness she has neither the experience nor the wisdom to stop.

A salutary tale for young adults on the dangers of hasty marriage and the terrors of domestic abuse, this story aims for realism. Bethany is a young woman in the South during the Depression, living with her Aunt Charlotte's family because her mother is dead and her father is an alcoholic. She falls hard for Joel, a darkly charming boy with a violent past. Marriage, baby, and abuse follow in short order, with Charlotte and her gentle husband giving forthright and sensible advice that Bethany for the most part fails to heed.