Diary of a Dying Girl, by Mal­lo­ry Smith, cap­tures the quin­tes­sen­tial com­ing of age through com­pelling diary entries record­ed over a ten-year peri­od. Her jour­ney encom­pass­es the strug­gles of body image, the tur­bu­lence of ado­les­cence, the men­tal health stress­es that often accom­pa­ny these defin­ing years, and the tug-of-war between auton­o­my and parental attach­ment that young adults often grap­ple with. It’s a jour­ney that takes on an extra­or­di­nary urgency because of Mallory’s life­long bat­tle with a super­bug, the result of hav­ing cys­tic fibro­sis. This is a chron­i­cle of a real life. Of a girl try­ing to make sense of the world and her place in it. A girl, who at age 11, learned that a resis­tant bac­te­ria had tak­en up res­i­dence in her body and changed the cal­cu­la­tion of her future. Mallory’s reflec­tions through it all are a mag­net for those seek­ing sto­ries that mir­ror the com­plex­i­ties of their own lives. Her prose is unflinch­ing­ly raw, her insights imbued with a wis­dom that belies her years — and her spirit.