The wisecracking 16-year-old dwarf at the center of DeWoskin’s darkly comic coming-of-age novel narrates a thoroughly modern tale of humiliation and resilience. At three foot nine, Judy is a tiny person with outsize ambitions and a wry take on her own limitations: “My mother’s idea has always been to try to make me feel close to perfect, but how close can that be, considering I look like she snatched me from some dollhouse.” Judy wins friends and admirers at her performing-arts school, but the thrills of a normal adolescence are short-lived, thanks to a cruel violation in which she loses both her virginity and her innocence. DeWoskin gives us an irresistible heroine—one who rises above misfortune with grit and grace.