In 1978 Christiane F. testified against a man who had traded heroin for sex with teenage girls at Berlin's notorious Zoo Station. In the course of that trial, Christiane F. became connected with two journalists, and over time they helped to turn her story-which begins with a dysfunctional but otherwise fairly normal childhood-into an acclaimed bestseller. Christiane F.'s rapid descent into heroin abuse and prostitution is shocking, but the boredom,...