Laika

Book excerpt: Laika is a finalist in the Best Book Awards for Literary Fiction and the Next Generation Indie Book Awards for Young New Adult and Second Novel. You feel watched. It's nothing new, but the feeling is amplified when the streets are busy. That hum in your head is now a buzz. Laika desperately wishes for a new life. At fourteen, she’s hardened and independent, living on the streets of Southern California. She’s finally free of her volatile home but yearns for true stability. As Graham, a waiter at a local Russian restaurant, watches Laika steal and struggle to survive, he sees there is something else going on. Something dangerous. An insidious disease that gnaws at her mind and drags her deeper into a world of chaos and delusion. Laika brings to light the often-shrouded world of paranoid schizophrenia. It also examines the socially stigmatized issues of homelessness, addiction, and PTSD, in the hopes of fostering greater awareness and compassion.