Selected by "The Los Angeles Times Book Review" as one of the best books of the year, "Project Girl" is the powerful account of a young woman's struggle to realize her dreams while remaining true to who she was before attending Ivy League schools and receiving impressive diplomas. It tells of the spectacular failures and unlikely comebacks of a ghetto kid whose academic talent opens doors onto a world of private schools, rich classmates, and plum jobs but who back home confronts a neighborhood of growing poverty, drug abuse, and crime. "Project Girl" is McDonald's story of her divided life and terrible battle to reconcile opposing worlds.