Alison Smith was sure of two things as a little girl: She loved her big brother Roy, and she believed in Jesus Christ. But following Roy’s sudden death in a car crash, Alison is left to face the world alone and, when she turns to God, she finds nothing.

Smith’s memoir starts out chronicling the aftermath of her brother’s tragic death—her parents’ immense grief, the newspaper articles detailing the gruesome crash, her own struggle to find her place in the world. It’s not until Alison is sent to an all-girls Catholic school that the second piece of the memoir comes to light: Alison falls in love with a girl. The confusion of her feelings is coupled with the fact that her Catholic community disapproves and, more importantly, her parents cannot understand.

It would have been all too easy for Smith to make this memoir a sob story, three hundred pages of tears and resentment. Instead, it’s a story of resilience, love, the bond of family, the ability for all wounds to heal, and the noble idea that the truest faith is found within.