Nowhere Girl, Cheryl Diamond
Nowhere Girl, Cheryl Diamond
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Nowhere Girl
A Memoir of a Fugitive Childhood

Author: Cheryl Diamond

Narrator: Eileen Stevens

Unabridged: 10 hr 37 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 06/15/2021


Synopsis

By the age of nine, I will have lived in more than a dozen countries, on five continents, under six assumed identities. I’ll know how a document is forged, how to withstand an interrogation, and most important, how to disappear . . .

To the young Cheryl Diamond, life felt like one big adventure, whether she was hurtling down the Himalayas in a rickety car or mingling with underworld fixers. Her family appeared to be an unbreakable gang of five. One day they were in Australia, the next in South Africa, the pattern repeating as they crossed continents, changed identities, and erased their pasts. What Diamond didn’t yet know was that she was born into a family of outlaws fleeing from the highest international law enforcement agencies, a family with secrets that would eventually catch up to all of them.

By the time she was in her teens, Diamond had lived dozens of lives and lies, but as she grew older, love and trust turned to fear and violence, and her family—the only people she had in the world—began to unravel. She started to realize that her life itself might be a big con, and the people she loved, the most dangerous of all. With no way out and her identity burned so often that she had no proof she even existed, all that was left was a girl from nowhere.

Surviving would require her to escape, and to do so Diamond would have to unlearn all the rules she grew up with. Wild, heartbreaking, and often unexpectedly funny, Nowhere Girl is an impossible-to-believe true story of self-discovery and triumph.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Michelle on June 28, 2021

A best book of the year for me. Superb. For anyone who follows my Instagram account, you know that I have been screaming from the rooftops about this book. It is one of the most outstanding stories I've ever read. It's unlike anything I've ever heard of and quite frankly, I wouldn't have believed so......more

Goodreads review by Kate The Book Addict on September 28, 2022

Thanks to Algonquin Books for my ARC of “Nowhere Girl” by Author Cheryl Diamond in exchange for an honest review. Where to begin?!! This is an unforgettable nonfiction story written so well you feel like you’re on this absurd nightmare journey side-by-side with the author. Your heart races as the ho......more

Goodreads review by Susanna on October 29, 2021

Maybe it's just my reporter training, but as I was reading, I kept thinking how her descriptions of India sounded almost too familiar, as if they had been lifted from other sources—movies she had seen, books she had read, stories she'd absorbed, scenes she had imagined. Germany struck me as much the......more

Goodreads review by BookNightOwl on August 12, 2021

Wow! This book deals with so much and it was astonishing what this family had to go through and what the children had to go through to make sure nobody knew who they were. This book is about a family who is on the run from the mothers father who threatened to take the children away. So as they hop f......more

Goodreads review by Tammy on November 11, 2022

4.5 stars. This was such an unbelievable, compelling tale where truth is absolutely stranger than fiction. When I finally picked it up (after sitting on my shelf since it’s release) I found it unlike any memoir I’ve ever read. How this woman was able to survive through all the madness to tell her st......more


Quotes

"A riveting tale of trauma and resilience."
People

“Like Tara Westover’s Educated, Cheryl Diamond’s memoir tells the harrowing story of how crippling a childhood can be under the despotic narcissistic rule of a controlling father . . . Diamond has a powerful story to tell, and she tells it well, creating strong characters and settings, describing the complicated motivations of her parents and older siblings, all while conveying her yearning for ‘normalcy,’ whatever that is.”
New York Journal of Books
 
“A shocking rollercoaster ride of a story that shares secrets of life on the run but also asks big questions about what family means and who we truly are, no matter what the name on a passport might say.”
Town Country

“This memoir is proof that truth really is stranger than fiction.”
CrimeReads, “The Most Anticipated Crime Books of 2021: Summer Reading Edition”

“[A] remarkable true story of growing up in a family of outlaws.”
Asheville Citizen-Times

“A transfixing chronicle . . . Propulsive . . . Eloquent and bracing, Diamond’s story will haunt readers long after the last page.”
Publishers Weekly, starred review

“A beyond-harrowing memoir . . .  Diamond's tale might just be the most mind-blowing of them all.”
Booklist, starred review

“Former teen model Diamond reveals a childhood both wacky and cliff-hanging in Nowhere Girl; on the run with an outlaw family, she lived in more than a dozen countries, on five continents, under six assumed identities, by age nine.”
Library Journal

Nowhere Girl beautifully captures the intensity, darkness, and fierce love within an uncompromising outlaw family. Diamond's odyssey would leave the most adventurous among us panting to keep up.”
—Alia Volz, author of Home Baked: My Mom, Marijuana, and the Stoning of San Francisco