Jump to ratings and reviews
Rate this book

Dumpster Doll: Adolescence

Rate this book
The Dumpster Doll Series continues with Adolescence--a story of a teenage foster kid's struggle and triumph, her pitfalls and resilience.

Michelle and her brothers are fresh out of foster care when they're reunited with their father in southern Ohio. Michelle has dreams of mending fractures in her family and moving past the trauma of the previous twelve years. But leaving the stability and guidance of a loving foster family, she discovers her single father is plagued with PTSD and not equipped to handle raising her and her brothers.

As Michelle begins to navigate adolescence without guidance, regular teenage problems compound into more serious roadblocks, and she ends up back in the foster care system. Just as she gets on her feet, determined to break the cycle, she ages out of the foster care system, and discovers it's once again up to her to secure her future.

Each challenge threatens to dim that future, but a spirit of resilience and a gritty perseverance keep her going-through poverty, assaults, homelessness, complicated family dynamics, juvenile detention, and the hardest decision she'll make in her life.

206 pages, Kindle Edition

Published December 16, 2022

Loading...
Loading...

About the author

Michelle Mays

12 books6 followers

Ratings & Reviews

What do you think?
Rate this book

Friends & Following

Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!

Community Reviews

5 stars
9 (64%)
4 stars
5 (35%)
3 stars
0 (0%)
2 stars
0 (0%)
1 star
0 (0%)
Displaying 1 of 1 review
Profile Image for Kate Taylor Clewell.
22 reviews11 followers
July 3, 2023
The Dumpster Doll series is the true account of Michelle Mays’s life before, during, and after her time in the foster care system. This book continues her life from twelve to sixteen as she continues life growing up with negligence, trauma, abuse, resilience, strength, and fortitude.

In Dumpster Doll: The Early Years we meet Michelle as a small child enduring a life that no one should experience at any age. Let alone a three-year-old. From being bounced to family member to family member, locked in a trailer for days on end with her brothers with no electricity, water, or food, sexually assaulted by family members and “friends”. On the other hand, Michelle got to experience stability and love with her foster family and especially from her foster mom, Jerlean.

At the beginning of Dumpster Doll: Adolescence Michelle has been reunited with her father and brothers. Unfortunately, the happiness that she has is squashed like the cockroaches in the trailer. The PTSD from the first 12 years come rushing back. Then she has to deal with the normal teenage angst and the issues going on at home too. Soon, she’s back in the foster care system to escape the life she does not want. Through perseverance, determination, and the help of others she starts to live the life she wants. However, like most teens, she learns that one choice can make life changing consequences.

It blows me away every time I read a Dumpster Doll book. I know Michelle Mays! I know what a kindhearted, smart, hardworking woman she is. I never would have thought that this is the true story of her life. The dysfunction that is in the foster care system and how it is failing children every day is heartbreaking. Buy this book, read it, and make a change.

Michelle is now the CEO of FosterHub, a nonprofit organization that provides young adults that age out of the system the support that they need to have a fair start for a normal life as an adult. Learn more at fosterhub.com.
Displaying 1 of 1 review