I was a bookworm who aced every test - until third grade, when my teacher handed out a pop quiz about Jesus and the Apostles.

I was a bookworm who aced every test - until third grade, when my teacher handed out a pop quiz about Jesus and the Apostles.

I had a nervous breakdown at 17 when my first love left me, and he was a typical bad boy, albeit a charismatic one, with a string of broken hearts trailing behind him.

A haunting, harrowing punch to the heart, Among the Missing is flat-out brilliant. About the secrets we keep, the lives we are desperate to live, and the chances we miss, it's a psychological dazzler. Truly, one of my favorite books of this year-or any year.

A lot of people hurl themselves into relationships to lose themselves, but I think the best relationships help us to be more ourselves, to bring forth our best selves.

Open adoption, when it works, is fabulous. But when it goes wrong, it's so traumatizing for everybody.

I have to admit that many of the relationships I write about are destructive, but that's the yin to the yang of a good relationship. Maybe you have to experience the terrible ones to appreciate the good unions!