Heidi

“Isabelle heard another voice: the old merchant’s voice. He had done the same thing to her. He’d called her ugly. Defined her before she ever had a chance to define herself. In the space of a moment, he’d decided everything she was and ever would be. But now Isabelle saw something she’d never seen before—that the merchant hadn’t acted alone. He’d had an accomplice—she, herself. She’d listened to him. She’d believed him. She’d let him tell her who she was. And after him, Maman, suitors, the grand duke, Cecile, the baker’s wife, the villagers of Saint-Michel. “They cut away pieces of me,” she whispered in the darkness. “But I handed them the knife.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, Stepsister