Review of Liz Murray's Breaking Night

How many teenagers, born to parents who are able to provide food, a warm bed, medical care, and emotional support, win large college scholarships and get accepted by Harvard?

Breaking Night, a memoir by Liz Murray, relives her hellish childhood, born to parents who mainline drugs at the kitchen table every night. When their high wears off, anything not nailed down will be sold or bargained with by her parent's for more drugs. We're talking a daily ritual, that left Liz and her older sister to fend for themselves. Liz had twenty dollars in quarters hidden in her room; her mom found those and bought drugs with them. On Thanksgiving her parent's sold the turkey for drugs. The refrigerator was mostly empty. Her parents required little food; their diet consisted of drugs and beer. Liz and her sister were hungry most days. When she got a birthday check in the mail from her grandmother, Liz's parents would steal it and buy drugs.

Their bathtub was plugged up, and nobody would fix it. Liz took showers by standing on a bucket, high over the black sludge in the tub. Welfare case workers came to the apartment often, yet they were only concerned about her spotty school attendance, not the filth and deprivation that was her life.

Liz stopped attending school in junior high; she could not concentrate in class when she hadn't eaten in several days. She also had a new "job". Each day she hung out at gas stations and offered to pump gas for customers, thereby earning herself tips. This she would use to buy food.

After a year of skipping school, a case worker came and took her into state custody. She was placed in a group home for delinquent girls. After a few months she was released; at this time her mother left her dad and moved in with a boyfriend. Liz saw her mother exhange sex for rent and food. The boyfriend did not want Liz there, and at fifteen years old, Liz "moved" to the streets. She slept in subways, hallways, landings in apartment buildings. On good nights, a friend would sneak her into their apartment, where she could shower and sleep indoors. She began a relationship with a boy she met on the streets. He became abusive, and she had the courage to leave him.

Over a year passed, and Liz realized she wanted more out of her life. Her mother died of Aids, and Liz knew she had to return to school to keep from repeating her mother's life.

She applied for, and was accepted, into a special high school in Manhattan, where she crammed four years worth of high school credits into two years. She began to wish for a better future, to believe that there was a better life out there for her. She applied for the New York Times scholarship which her guidance counselor had told her about. She won the twelve thousand a year scholarship. She was chosen over thousands of other applicants. Step two of her amazing life plan- apply to Harvard.

She was accepted. Although she had difficulty adjusting to life in a dorm; this is understandable, she had been living in the streets for many years. Liz took a few years off to care for her father, infected with Hiv. In 2009 she graduated from Harvard. She was and will always be an inspiration to those who can see no way out of their difficult circumstances. A great, inspirational read!