The Invisible Girls: A Memoir [Paperback]

Now with a new postscript and reading group guide, perfect for book clubs.

After nearly dying of breast cancer in her twenties, Sarah Thebarge fled her successful career, her Ivy League education, and a failed relationship, and moved nearly 3,000 miles from the East Coast to Portland, Oregon, hoping to quietly pick up the pieces of her broken life. Instead, a chance encounter on the train with a family of Somali refugees swept her into an adventure that changed all of their lives.

Half a world away from Somalia, Hadhi was fighting battles of her own. Abandoned by her husband, she was struggling to raise five young daughters in a culture she didn't understand. When their worlds collide with Sarah's, Hadhi and the girls were on the brink of starvation in their own home, invisible in a neighborhood of strangers. As Sarah helped Hadhi and the girls navigate American life, her unexpected outreach to the family became both a source of courage and a lifeline for herself.

Exquisite, at times shattering, Sarah's enthralling memoir invites readers into her story of finding connection, love, and redemption in the most unlikely of places.

All proceeds from the sale of the book go toward a college fund for the five Somali Invisible Girls. For details, visit www.sarahthebarge.com. This memoir combines good writing, dramatic events, and a thoughtful response to them. World Magazine Wonderfully written, the book will have you staring through it, into a world that seems to have been made new. I am grateful there are new writers in the world like Sarah Thebarge. You'll get caught up in the strength of her kindness and the girls she describes even as we gain our focus to slowly see them, and so many others, for ourselves. Don Miller, author of Storyline and Blue Like Jazz Intertwining her own excruciating story of loss and rejection with the stirring story of a family of Somali refugees,The Invisible Girlsis a testament to unls(