Far From the Tree: A Memoir

Sometimes our lives have to be completely

shaken up, changed, and rearranged

to relocate us to the place we're meant to be.

-Adrianne Hemenway

Lena is taken away from her dysfunctional family and placed in an orphanage in a small Russian town. She is terrified but determined to figure out a way to survive in a place where children live by the rules of their own, wear matching clothes, and are occasionally dragged off to "crazy houses."

Will Lena choose to fit in and risk eventually ending up amidst the drunks, the prostitutes, the criminals, and the dead-the dire statistics surrounding orphanage graduates that feed the so-prevalent social stigma and stereotypes? Or will she turn to God and fight for a better future?