The Lost Boy by Dave Pelzer (Orion, £6.99 in UK )

A Child Called It was the unadorned account of the torture - there's no other word for it - which Pelzer's alcoholic mother inflicted on him as a young child. This sequel covers the period from the age of 12, when he was removed from his mother's house and put into foster care. Predictably, he had problems adapting, and the book chronicles his trek in and out of foster homes and his dabbling in petty crime until he joined the air force at the age of 18. Though the early abuse is revisited in some detail here, no real attempt is made to explore the reasons his mother turned from a nurturing all-American mom into a sadistic monster. Pelzer justifies this by saying the books are written from a child's perspective. The flat tone, banal descriptions and lack of context make the grim story seem all the more shocking, but it is a glaring lack.